KKDA (AM)
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KKDA (730 AM) is an American
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 radio ...
in the
Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
/
Fort Worth Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...
area. The station is licensed to serve the
community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
of
Grand Prairie, Texas Grand Prairie is a city in Dallas, Tarrant, and Ellis counties of Texas, in the United States. It is part of the Mid-Cities region in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It had a population of 175,396 according to the 2010 census, making it t ...
, and is owned by Scott Kim and Kimberly Roberts, through licensee SKR Partners LLC. On January 1, 2013, SKR Partners began operating the station under a
local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...
while the sale awaits FCC approval. Previously, KKDA was operated for many years by Service Broadcasting as a long-time
urban oldies Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music on ...
format. In addition, it carried UTA Mavericks men's basketball games beginning with the 2012–13 season.
730 AM 730 AM is a Mexican and Canadian clear-channel frequency. XEX Mexico City and CKAC Montreal are the Class A stations on 730 kHz. The following radio stations Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio signal, audio (sound), sometimes ...
is a Canadian and Mexican
clear-channel A clear-channel station is an AM broadcasting, AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from Interference (communication), interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The syste ...
frequency.


History

AM 730 in Dallas began operations on August 1, 1957, as
Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...
music station KBCS. After a few years of competing with 1190 KLIF and 1480 KBOX for the Top 40 audience with limited success, the station changed calls to KKSN ("Kissin'") in 1959, evolving into an R&B format over the coming months and taking the new calls KRZY ("Crazy") in 1960. In
1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...
, KRZY became KPCN with a
country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...
format. KPCN did well until 1480 KBOX changed from Top 40 to country at the start of
1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
, as daytimer KPCN was unable to compete against 24-hour KBOX. AM 730 took the KKDA calls in January 1969 and initially aired an
easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...
format for a little over a year until returning to an R&B format in April
1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...
. KKDA has aired programming targeted toward the African-American community of Dallas/Fort Worth ever since. The station was acquired by Service Broadcasting Corporation on December 22, 1976. For years, it used the station ident./logo of 'Soul 73', with a mix of soul, R&B, and some gospel, jazz and blues. KKDA was a
daytime Daytime as observed on Earth is the period of the day during which a given location experiences natural illumination from direct sunlight. Daytime occurs when the Sun appears above the local horizon, that is, anywhere on the globe's hemis ...
-only station until
1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
. In late May 2012, KKDA laid off much of its staff, including Bobby Patterson, Cindy B. and Roger B. Brown and replaced them with an automated service. Months later, the station tweaked its branding to Soul 730 (Soul Seven-Thirty), while keeping its Urban Oldies format. New DJs were then hired, with veteran broadcaster Willis Johnson continuing with his morning show (5AM to 9AM), Lynne Haze running midday drive (9AM-2PM), and Warren Brooks taking the afternoon and early evening hours (2PM-7PM). Automation continued during offpeak hours. KKDA also then finally got its own website, following the slight re-branding and logo overhaul, including live broadcast. On December 21, 2012, license holder Service Broadcasting Group LLC contracted to sell KKDA to Scott Kim and Kimberly Roberts, through their licensee SKR Partners LLC, for a reported sale price of $1.9 million. The FCC accepted the application to transfer the
broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary ...
on December 28, 2012, but , the Commission has taken no further action on the transaction. While the sale is pending, SKR Partners began operating the station with a new
Korean language Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographic ...
radio format under a
local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...
on January 1, 2013. Despite the switch to Korean language format, the station continued to air UTA Mavericks basketball throughout the remainder of the 2012–13 season. The games were the only English language programming remaining on the station. On February 22, 2013, Hymen Childs' Service Broadcasting Group closed on the sale of Korean KKDA-AM/Grand Prairie-Dallas to SKR Partners LLC for $1,900,000


Former programming


The Millie Jackson Show

Soul legend
Millie Jackson Mildred Virginia Jackson (born July 15, 1944) is an American Rhythm and blues, R&B and Soul music, soul recording artist. Beginning her career in the early 1960s, three of Jackson's albums have been certified Music recording certification, gold ...
hosted an afternoon drive show from 3-6 PM weekdays for many years, mixing music with commentary and comedy.Show personalities regularly included S.B. and Trish Hodge with news; and later debuted Katie London with traffic. Featured segments included "The N-News" at 5:30. Her last show was on January 6, 2012.


Talking Sports with Roger B. Brown

KKDA, also had a sports show that served the African-American community. "Talking Sports with Roger B. Brown." was heard Mondays through Fridays from 6-7PM, and on Sundays from 6-8PM. The show had a host of characters like Rufus D. (real name: Rudy Jones), Flipp Da Burd, Eric B. (real name: Eric Sattler) among others. Rufus D. was the entertainment and sports editor on Sundays and also served as co-host. Eric B. also served as co-host. The show was one of the few sports talk shows hosted by black broadcasters. Roger B. Brown had been talking sports in Dallas, Texas for over 18 years prior to being laid off from the station.


Controversy

The sale and format change of KKDA-AM stirred negative criticism from the station's loyal listeners in the African American community. Dallas City Councilman
Dwaine Caraway Dwaine R. Caraway (born April 30, 1952) is a former American politician and convicted felon who served as the 60th mayor of Dallas in 2011, in an interim capacity. He pleaded guilty in 2018 for taking bribes while serving as mayor pro tem. He serve ...
, who regularly listened to Willis Johnson's morning show on KKDA-AM, said: “This is stripping the voice. I have no problems with Koreans at all, but as it relates to African Americans, this man made millions and to say nothing to us at all?", indicating the loss of Soul 730 had silenced a powerful outlet. Service Broadcasting kept its profitable FM Hip-Hop counterpart, KKDA-FM (K104), but that failed to appease the AM station's listeners. As of April 22, 2013; Willis Johnson's morning show returned on the 411 Reality Radio network online.Willis Johnson

411 Reality Radio
(accessed April 26, 2013)


References


External links

*
DFW Radio/TV History
{{Dallas Fort Worth Radio Asian-American culture in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex Radio stations established in 1957
KDA The dalton or unified atomic mass unit (symbols: Da or u) is a non-SI unit of mass widely used in physics and chemistry. It is defined as of the mass of an unbound neutral atom of carbon-12 in its nuclear and electronic ground state and at ...
Korean-language radio stations in the United States Non-English-language radio stations in Texas Full service radio stations in the United States