KDCO (1340 kHz) is a noncommercial AM

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

licensed to

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. The station is owned by El Sembrador Ministries and carries its

ESNE Radio ESNE Radio is a Spanish-language Catholic radio network based in the United States, owned by El Sembrador Ministries. Headquartered in Chatsworth, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, ESNE broadcasts on 14 stations in the United States, Mexico and ...

network, featuring Spanish-language Catholic radio programming.

History

KMYR and KDEN

The station was launched by Frederick W. Meyer, a wholesale grocer, in 1940 as KMYR. (The

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...

represented Meyer's name.) It originally signed on with 250

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...

s of power. The station's sale in 1956 brought a call letter change to KDEN. For a time in the 1970s and 80s, KDEN aired an all-news radio format. At first it used NBC Radio's "News and Information Service" (NIS). When that was discontinued, KDEN remained an NBC News

network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

but it had its own schedule of local anchors delivering the news.

Radio AAHS

In December 1993, after an eight-month period off the air, 1340 AM became KKYD "

Radio AAHS Radio AAHS was a radio network managed by the Children's Broadcasting Corporation. Its flagship station was WWTC (1280 AM) in Minneapolis, which broadcast from the former First Federal Bank building at Minnesota State Highway 100 and Excelsior ...

", the Denver outlet of the first nationwide network of radio programs for children. The downfall of Radio AAHS came when the

Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

established a competitor, Radio Disney. After the sign-off of Radio AAHS in January 1998, Children's Broadcasting Corporation needed programming for its owned & operated former AAHS stations until it could find buyers for them. KKYD, along with the other nine CBC stations, became an outlet for "

Beat Radio Beat Radio originally was an unlicensed radio station in Minneapolis, Minnesota that played dance music. Founded by local radio DJ and programmer, Alan Freed, in 1996, the station served downtown Minneapolis and surrounding neighborhoods and reac ...

", which broadcast electronic dance music 12 hours a night.

Colorado Public Radio

This lasted until late October 1998. KKYD then switched to a Catholic radio format, which it aired until sale from the Catholic Radio Network to

Colorado Public Radio Colorado Public Radio (CPR) is a public radio state network based in Denver, Colorado that broadcasts three services: news, classical music and Indie 102.3, which plays adult album alternative music. CPR airs its programming on 15 full-power stat ...

. The announcement of CPR's purchase February 9, 2001, also mentioned plans to convert the station from commercial to non-commercial status. In September 2000, CPR acquired the intellectual properties of then-classical station KVOD AM 1280, as that station was switching to another format. In March 2001, Colorado Public Radio put the classical music programming of KVOD on 90.1 FM, with KCFR's News/Talk/

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

programming moved to 1340 AM. On July 9, 2008, KCFR moved back to 90.1 FM, with KVOD moving to the newly acquired 88.1 FM frequency. The changes were made as CPR wanted to go FM-only by the end of the year. Until a buyer could be found for 1340, CPR continued to operate it as a

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simulta ...

of 90.1 KCFR. On October 31, 2011, CPR launched "OpenAir" on 1340 AM, billing it "New Music from Colorado Public Radio." It has a broad-based format that focuses on current independent artists with a great deal of current Colorado talent. OpenAir also streams online at www.openaircpr.org. With the change, new KVOQ call letters were adopted.

Sports radio

On July 24, 2015, Colorado Public Radio announced that it would swap KVOQ to Victor Michael's Cedar Cove Broadcasting, Inc. in exchange for KRKY-FM. Michael also forgave $100,000 in debt as part of the swap. On July 27, 2015, KVOQ changed its format to all-sports, branded as "Mile High Sports". The previous OpenAir format is now heard on KVOQ 102.3. On August 28, 2015, the station changed its call sign to the current KDCO. Effective January 20, 2016, Cedar Cove Broadcasting traded KDCO to Kona Coast Radio, LLC, in exchange for

translator station A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

s K214DW and K206EO. Kona Coast Radio is also owned by Victor Michael. On April 28, 2016, KDCO began simulcasting on FM translator K284CI 104.7 FM Denver. Effective August 22, 2017, Victor Michael sold KDCO and translators K225BS and K284CI to 4-K's LLLP for $464,000. Effective November 25, 2020, 4-K's LLLP sold the K284CI translator to Rocky Mountain Public Media for $680,000, at which point it began rebroadcasting KUVO. The AM station was simultaneously sold separately for $420,000 to El Sembrador Ministries, owner of the

network of Spanish-language Catholic radio stations with ESNE programming beginning on December 8.

References

External links

{{coord, 39, 41, 00, N, 105, 00, 24, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title DCO (AM) Radio stations established in 1940 1940 establishments in Colorado DCO (AM) Catholic radio stations