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KZDC (1250 AM, "San Antonio's Sports Star: ESPN AM 1250 and 94.1 FM") is an all-sports-formatted
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 ...
in
San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...
, owned by
Alpha Media Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...
. Most of the programming comes from ESPN Radio. Its studios and offices are located on Eisenhauer Road in Northeast San Antonio. KZDC broadcasts at 25,000
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 by day using a
non-directional antenna In radio communication, an omnidirectional antenna is a class of antenna (electronics), antenna which radiates equal radio power in all directions perpendicular to an axis (mathematics), axis (azimuthal directions), with power varying with angle ...
. To avoid interfering with other stations on
1250 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1250 kHz: 1250 AM is a Regional broadcast frequency. Argentina * Estirpe Nacional in San Justo Canada Mexico * XEDK-AM in Guadalajara, Jalisco * XETEJ-AM in Tejupilco, Mexico ...
, it drastically reduces power at night to 920 watts and uses a directional antenna. The daytime
transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...
site is just off U.S. Route 281 near Interstate 410, in the Mission del Lago district of San Antonio. The station uses a separate nighttime site which is co-located with sister station
KTSA KTSA (550 AM "107.1 and 550 KTSA") is a commercial radio station in San Antonio, Texas. KTSA is owned by Alpha Media and airs a talk radio format. The studios, offices and three-tower transmitter are on Eisenhauer Road in San Antonio. Most h ...
550, along Eisenhauer Road in Northeast San Antonio, across the street from the studios.


History


Early years

The original construction permit for what would become KEXX was initially granted by the
FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdictio ...
on July 16, 1952 to Manuel D. Leal. KEXX was to initially operate as a daytime-only station with 500 watts of power on 1250 kHz. The station originally signed on January 1, 1953, and would receive its license to cover on February 9, 1953, a little over a month later. The station's studios were originally located on 501 West Quincy Street. KEXX originally broadcast a Spanish-language full service format centered on traditional Mexican music. On February 2, 1959, KEXX made a brief diversion to an English language format under the call letters KARS, operated by Les Miller Enterprises. Leal continued to hold the broadcasting license. By February 21, the previous call letters and format had been restored.


KUKA: "Fiesta Radio"

In November 1959, KEXX, while retaining the same format, changed its call letters to KUKA, which it bore for the next 24 years. The station took its call letters from a station secretary whose nickname was Kukita. In May 1961, Leal sold KUKA to Por Favor, Inc., a company controlled by local attorney Alex Coe and son Marshall, for $200,000. The sale was completed on June 1. Under the Coes, the format largely remained the same. It was also under their stewardship that the station adopted the "Fiesta Radio" positioner. On November 17, 1965, KUKA was granted authorization to broadcast at 1,000 watts, still as a daytime-only station. On August 23, 1979, KUKA was granted a construction permit to allow unlimited operation, with 1,000 watts at all times. Stuart Epperson would acquire KUKA and Por Favor, Inc. from the Coes on July 28, 1981, for $850,000. Epperson already owned classical station KMFM (96.1 MHz) through holding company Classic Media; Epperson had acquired it in 1977. The sale closed in December, and under the new owners, the station changed to a bilingual Christian format presented primarily in English; The format featured a mix of Contemporary Christian music and talk programming. 17 staffers lost their jobs as a result of the switch. Newly appointed general manager Mel Taylor stated that the switch was made because the station's overall position in ratings and revenue began to decline. Taylor also noted that the new owners had no experience programming Spanish-language formats. The Quincy Street studios were sold to competing Spanish-language outlet KFHM (1160 AM), and KUKA moved into KMFM's studios in an office building on Fredericksburg Road.


Lotus Communications-era

In August 1982, after less than a year of ownership, Epperson sold KUKA to
Lotus Communications Lotus Communications Corporation is a media company that owns numerous radio stations and a few TV stations, and is one of the largest privately owned radio station groups in the United States. Headquarters are located in Los Angeles, and the com ...
, who had already owned KVAR 104.5 since 1977, for $875,000. This was to facilitate Epperson's purchase of KMAC (630 AM), which had been announced a month earlier. At the time, FCC regulations forbade one entity from owning multiple stations on the same band in the same market, and KMAC had a superior signal to KUKA's. Upon Lotus' closing of the deal in March, the Contemporary Spanish language programming that had been on 104.5 FM moved to KUKA, along with the KVAR call letters. Its new FM sister station then adopted the KXZL calls, along with a new
rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...
format. The two stations relocated to a office building located at 1130 East Durango Boulevard. By mid-1984, KVAR had changed its call letters to KXET, with the format remaining unchanged. The station started to brand as "K-XET Radio Éxitos" coinciding with the call letter change. Starting with the 1987 season, KXET also broadcast Houston Astros games in Spanish, although it lost the rights in 1989 to KRIA, as KXET could only commit to carrying 55 of the 162 games offered that year. On June 1, 1989, KXET dumped the six-year-old Spanish format and switched to
news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. N ...
and
sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
programming that primarily consisted of a 24-hour audio feed of CNN Headline News, using the new call letters KRNS. KXET also held a secondary affiliation with the
Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...
, carrying feature programs such as CBS Mystery Theater three nights a week, along with sports programming from the network. Additionally, KRNS signed up to carry Texas Rangers games beginning June 1. General manager Jay Levine simply said that the move was "just a business decision at this point in time", citing low ratings and an oversaturated Spanish language radio market. KXET had drawn a 1.6 rating in the Fall 1988 ratings book, second-lowest of the market's Spanish stations behind KRIA with a 0.4. 13 staffers were put out of work by the switch, with four engineers working in shifts to keep the station on the air. KRNS later acquired the rights to broadcast
UTSA Roadrunners basketball UTSA or Utsa may refer to: * Uniform Trade Secrets Act, a uniform law on trade secret protection in the United States * University of Texas at San Antonio, an American public research university ** UTSA Roadrunners, this university's athletic prog ...
for three years beginning with the 1989 season. The new format lasted less than a year, and management pulled the plug on February 9, 1990, putting 10 staffers out of work. Levine stated that the station was "going to be missed by a select few" and that it was not "economically feasible" to continue with the KRNS programming. The station then switched to 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 its FM
classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...
-formatted sister, now called KZEP; the call letters were changed to reflect the simulcast. The UTSA Roadrunners broadcasts were unaffected by the format change. After listener demand, management announced that Mutual's
Larry King Show The ''Larry King Show'' is an American overnight radio talk show hosted by Larry King which was broadcast nationally over the Mutual Broadcasting System from January 1978 to May 1994. A typical show consisted of King interviewing a guest, then t ...
would survive the transition to KZEP as well, remaining in its weeknight 10 p.m.-4 a.m. slot. The Rangers were dropped by the station for the 1990 season. On October 1, 1992, the station began broadcasting an all-sports format, with all programming being provided via satellite by the
Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
-based Sports Entertainment Network. Levine observed that "the AM band has run into a lot of problems through the last few years and in order to be successful, you have to try other things", adding that he felt the new format would be "unique and different".
Notre Dame football The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is the intercollegiate football team representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, north of the city of South Bend, Indiana. The team plays its home games at the campus' Notre Dame ...
, NFL games, and several college bowl games were also offered on the station. KZEP abruptly dropped the sports format on April 1, 1994 at 1 a.m., switching to the
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
-based Spanish language Radio LABIO network; the new KHBL call letters accompanied the switch. A station engineer noted that the station failed to crack the top 30 in Arbitron's ratings for San Antonio. This format lasted a little over seven months before the KZEP call letters and KZEP-FM simulcast returned. In May 1995, KZEP flipped to a separately programmed, automated hard rock and heavy metal format to complement its FM sister station, adopting the present KZDC call sign in the process.


Radio Única era

On January 5, 1998, KZDC adopted a Spanish language talk format as an affiliate of the Miami-based Radio Única network; Radio Única had taken over operations of KZDC under an LMA with Lotus. Personalities heard on Radio Única included Pedro Sevcec and
Isabel Gómez-Bassols Isabel Gómez-Bassols is a psychologist, writer, and broadcaster in the United States. She is a radio talk show host on Univisión's nationwide Spanish-language radio network, and also appears regularly on television. Career Gómez-Bassols was ...
, among others. On April 17, 2000, Lotus announced it would be selling KZDC to Radio Única outright for $1.8 million. On February 9, 2004, Multicultural Broadcasting announced it would acquire Radio Única's assets, including KZDC, for $150 million, after Radio Única filed for bankruptcy protection the previous year. However, Multicultural wouldn't retain KZDC for long. In January 2005, less than a year after acquiring KZDC from Radio Única,
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
-based Border Media Partners (BMP Radio) would acquire KZDC as part of a package deal with Multicultural for $5.75 million; the sale also included KFNI in Pleasanton and KVJY in Pharr. Upon BMP's closing of the acquisition, KZDC flipped to a Regional Mexican format branded as "La Lupe", which remained until the present sports format was adopted three years later.


ESPN Radio-era

KZDC flipped to its current sports format on February 4, 2008, originally branded as ''ESPN 1250 The Zone''. In the early 2010s, KZDC left its longtime transmitter site on San Antonio's East Side, which succumbed to redevelopment. BMP constructed a new 25 kW daytime site on the city's South Side, along with a new 920-watt night signal from KTSA's site. On October 14, 2013, BMP sold KZDC and the rest of its San Antonio cluster to L&L Broadcasting (now
Alpha Media Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...
) for $31 million. The transaction closed on January 31, 2014. On July 19, 2021, KZDC rebranded from ''ESPN San Antonio'' to ''San Antonio's Sports Star'', coinciding with the debut of a third local sports talk show on the station, which retained its ESPN Radio affiliation.


FM translator

In December 2014, KZDC began to rebroadcast its programming on new FM translator K233DB at 94.5 FM. On February 1, 2022 KZDC switched translators from K233DB 94.5 FM to K277CX 103.3 FM San Antonio. The simulcast on K277CX lasted until June 9, 2022, when it switched to a simulcast of tejano-formatted KLEY-FM 95.7 Jourdanton.TEJANO 95.7 ADDS SAN ANTONIO SIMULCAST
Radioinsight - June 9, 2022


References


External links

{{Alpha Media ZDC ESPN Radio stations Radio stations established in 1953 Alpha Media radio stations 1953 establishments in Texas