KKLQ (FM)

KSWD

File:KSWD.png
Los Angeles Newhall, California
Broadcast area	Greater Los Angeles
Frequency	100.3 MHz (HD Radio)
Branding	"100.3 The Sound"
Programming
Format	AOR
Ownership
Owner	Bonneville International
History
First air date	1989
Call sign meaning	K SoWnD (play on the word "sound")
Technical information
Class	KSWD: B K261AB: D
ERP	KSWD: 5,400 watts K261AB: 7 watts
HAAT	KSWD: 916 meters K261AB: 597 meters
Repeater(s)	K261AB 100.1 MHz (Newhall)
Links
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	thesoundla.com

KSWD ("100.3 The Sound") is a Bonneville International-owned radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, USA. Briefly an Adult Album Alternative station, KSWD currently broadcasts an AOR format to the greater Los Angeles area. Previously, the station was owned by Radio One and had an Mainstream Urban and later an Urban AC format as KKBT "The Beat" and later KRBV "V-100". A repeater in Newhall, K261AB on 100.1 MHz, extends KSWD's coverage to the north of the Los Angeles area.

History

92.3 began as KFAC-FM and played classical music.

KKBT

In 1989 the station was sold to Evergreen and renamed a rhythmic contemporary hits station KKBT, "92.3 The Beat". Initially September 1989, the station offered a blend of adult rock, dance music, and adult contemporary. The format failed miserably and by 1990 the adult rock cuts were gone. The station moved toward a rhythmic AC format playing a blend of disco, soft pop hits, current R&B and oldies. The station still did not do well and by summer 1990, it evolved to a strictly urban AC station. By 1991, rap and hip-hop were being mixed in and the station evolved to an Urban Contemporary format.

As an urban contemporary station, "92.3 the Beat", hit #1 a few times in the ratings. It competed aggressively with a Hip Hop station on the 105.9 frequency, KPWR (which evolved from dance/urban CHR). During the time the station featured many popular DJs and hosts including John London and the House Party, a popular morning show which competed with other top local shows like Mark and Brian on KLOS and Rick Dees on KIIS-FM, Theo Mizuhara, Eric Cubiche, and Nautica De La Cruz, along with Dr. Dre and the World Class Wreckin' Crew. Other shows included Westside Radio, a weekly radio program dedicated to West Coast Hip-Hop, which now airs on KDAY and Street Science, a weekly program dedicated to community issues and politics. The stations slogan was "No Color Lines," proudly championing the diversity of the region. It is believed that 92.3 the Beat was inspired by KDAY, the first hip-hop station. During the 1990s, The Beat held a summer concert known as Summer Jam which featured major hip-hop and r&b stars who performed at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

In a group deal in 1997 Evergreen merged with Chancellor. Chancellor acquired stations from other groups that exited the market. In 1999 Chancellor merged with Capstar and the company became AMFM, Incorporated.

In the fall of 1999, Clear Channel Communications and AMFM Inc. merged. This gave Clear Channel the five FM stations in LA and KIIS-FM and which Clear Channel already owned. However, in order to get under the government-mandated market ownership limits, some stations were required to be spun off. One of the full powered FMs in Los Angeles had to go. KKBT's intellectual unit was the station chosen; it was sold off to Radio One. However, Clear Channel wanted to keep the best possible signal and gave Radio One 100.3 FM. Radio One then moved KKBT's format to 100.3. Leading up to the frequency swap, rumors swirled about whether 100.3's format would survive the move to 92.3 FM. Being 100.3 was going to an African American owned company known for urban formats it seemed that "The Beat" would likely move to 100.3 intact. Much speculation led to 92.3 going active rock, possibly with the KMET calls.

Moving to 100.3

When the switch was made on June 30, 2000, the formats remained the same, with 100.3 becoming KKBT, "100.3 the Beat" and 92.3 becoming KCMG, "Mega 92.3". In 2001 Mega's format on 92.3 did move in more of an Urban Adult Contemporary direction, as the "Jammin' Oldies" format was starting to fade in popularity. Eventually KCMG became KHHT "Hot 92.3," a direct competitor to KKBT. Soon afterward, KKBT released their morning team of Dre and Ed Lover plus afternoon drivers Baka Boyz.

During the first four years under Radio One, KKBT enjoyed modest success as it battled KPWR for the R&B/hip-hop crown. KKBT heavily promoted Steve Harvey as its high-profile morning star and billed itself under the slogan of "Harvey & Hip-Hop". However, ultimately KKBT never overtook KPWR in the ratings. Harvey was also at odds with station management over the station's hip-hop content and refused to play questionable songs during his show until his departure from the station.

But in 2004, the station began showing signs of erosion in ratings, as it faced new competition. KDAY debuted its own hip-hop format in 2004, siphoning off a good number of KKBT listeners. KXOL-FM's flip to reggaeton in 2005, took many of The Beat's Hispanic listeners. KKBT went through a great deal of turmoil, with several popular airstaffers leaving or being dismissed from 2002 through 2006.

"Rhythm & Talk"

On May 19, 2006, KKBT officially threw in the towel as a Mainstream Urban outlet and flipped to a hybrid Urban Adult Contemporary/Urban Talk format dubbed "Rhythm & Talk". According to the press release that was featured on the station's website: "The new format, which will engage 25-49 year old adults, takes the best music of Urban Adult Contemporary stations and adds compelling content delivered by proven national personalities Tom Joyner, Ananda Lewis, Michael Baisden, Wendy Williams and Free."

However, the 'Rhythm and Talk' emphasis did not succeed in the ratings, and the station dropped Free and Lewis first from the lineup. Williams, which aired on tape delay after midnight on weekends, was dropped later, and the Tom Joyner Morning Show was dropped when it could not compete with Steve Harvey on KDAY. Other on-air staffers also left the station; Baisden remained until KRBV's format flip in April 2008. Michael Baisden later landed on KDAY, before being dropped by the station in August 2009.

KKBT was the last full market Hip Hop/R&B station to use the Urban format as opposed to Rhythmic, not to mention the only one that covered the metro. However, much of its target audience tuned to other stations: Hispanics preferred KPWR and KXOL-FM, African-Americans had KHHT, KJLH, and to a lesser extent KTWV as options; and in the meantime KMVN debuted and targeted older listeners with dance pop from the 1980s to the present day. With that, ratings suffered, and speculation grew about its future. Emmis Broadcasting reportedly was interested in the station, but decided not to buy it.

Eventually, KKBT elected to go head-to-head with the Urban AC formats of KHHT and long-time Compton-based KJLH . The station also hired Cliff Winston away from KJLH for afternoon drive.

KRBV - "V-100"

Radio One began in October 2006 referencing the "Beat" brand less in its promos. Promos would only reference the 100.3 frequency and in December 2006 briefly touted "Majic", giving rise to speculation that Radio One would use the Majic brand, most notably found on sister stations WMMJ in Washington, DC, WWIN-FM in Baltimore, and KMJQ in Houston.

However, on December 29, 2006, Radio One instead unveiled "The New V-100". With that, an Urban heritage based era came to an end: The KKBT callsign was no more after 16 years, and "The Beat" branding forever erased as a piece of radio brand history was gone because KKBT was the very first radio station to carry "The Beat" moniker. The same moment, the calls were changed to KRBV. (Ironically, KRBV and V-100 was used on an Urban AC station in Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in the mid to late-1990s. That station is now KJKK.) The imaging was similar in fashion to WRKS in New York City, perhaps a reason being that Barry Mayo, the former general manager for WRKS, is consulting Radio One and thus wanted to use similar imaging for this station.

The re-imaging and airstaff changes did not help the station's ratings, however. At a stockholders' meeting in 2007, some investors called for KRBV to be sold, but company officials said that they had no plans to do so. One possible reason for this is that KRBV was the only Radio One-owned and operated station in the three leading markets in the U.S. (it does not own stations in New York City or Chicago). Also, a sale of KRBV would come at a loss to Radio One compared to how much it originally paid for it, possibly because of the residual effects of the frequency swap with KHHT.

"100.3 The Sound"

On March 24, 2008, Radio One announced that the station had been sold to Bonneville International for $137.5 million. The transaction closed in the second quarter of 2008. According to a spokesperson for Bonneville, the station would continue to be a music station, although there were rumors that the station would actually flip to news/talk (similar to sister stations KTAR-FM in Phoenix, Arizona and WWWT in Washington, D.C.). On April 3, Bonneville confirmed the adult album alternative format. On their final day, April 7, 2008, KRBV's air staffers bid farewell to their listeners.

On April 8, 2008, Bonneville International took over the operations of KRBV, then dropped the Adult R&B format at midnight Pacific time. The station began stunting as "Bruce Radio 100.3", playing all of Bruce Springsteen's hits (in connection to his show that night at Honda Center in Anaheim, California). After ten hours of playing "The Boss," KRBV made the following announcement: "Hello, and welcome to what we hope will be a new beginning for Southern California and music fans everywhere." At 10 a.m., the station became "100.3 The Sound" and the AAA format officially began.

The new station offered listeners a cornucopia of rock, stretching from the '60s all the way to "last week," according to Bonneville vice president of programming Greg Solk and executive VP Drew Horowitz. In an interview from R&R the day of the launch, Bonneville president and chief executive officer Bruce Reese told the music trade, "It’s great to be back in L.A." He added that "we are truly excited about our new station -- 100.3 the Sound will be a music station that has absolute respect for the music and that features a broad playlist."

On May 14, 2008, the new call letters, KSWD, were officially introduced. The rights to these call letters had to be purchased from an FM station in Seward, Alaska (currently KKNI).

KSWD's new format and "The Sound" logo were loosely patterned after its sister station in Cincinnati, Ohio, WSWD. But whereas KSWD's direction took a broader approach, WSWD focused mostly on 1990s and current fare. WSWD officially left the terrestrial airwaves in 2009.

KSWD was the fourth station in the Los Angeles radio market to program a Triple-A format. KNX-FM, KSCA and KACD/KBCD have featured the format in past years. The last of those stations also used the positioning statement "World Class Rock for Southern California."

In May 2009, KSWD dropped most of its new music for traditional, classic rock artists, although its playlist includes many more deep album tracks than their nearest competitors, KLOS and KCBS-FM. As a result, KSWD was pulled off Mediabase's AAA Reporting stations. The station is now seen as an AOR station playing a majority of recurrents with only a handful of currents.

On Friday, July 10, The Sound held a "Finally a KMET Friday" to honor past LA rock radio station KMET. The day featured many of the original DJs from the station and much of the original music, promos and sound clips from the station. The day concluded with a three-hour Bruce Springsteen live KMET concert from 1978.

On June 10, 2010, The Sound aired an A to Z countdown. More than 1,000 songs were played in alphabetical order by song title. The Sound's countdown was very similar to A to Z presentations on KLOS, which ended in 2008. A second edition of "The Sound A to Z" began on October 11, lasting just over a week and featuring more than 2,000 tunes. These promotions allowed listeners to enjoy not only the deep album tracks for which the station was becoming well known, but also tracks outside of the regular playlist, music that hadn't been heard on local radio for many years.

HD radio

KSWD over the years has had a variety of formats on its HD channels. The current formats at present are 'Deep Tracks' (Rock) on the HD2 channel, and 'Mormon Channel' featuring programming from the LDS Church on the HD3 channel.

On-air staff

On June 3, 2008, The Sound's first on-air host, Andy Chanley, made his debut in the afternoon drive slot. Chanley currently works middays for the station. He previously did middays on former alternative station KLYY and mornings on KACD/KBCD. Other notable weekday on-air hosts include Larry Morgan (morning drive), Julie Slater (afternoon drive), and Mike Powers (nights). Weekend hosts include Dred Scott, Mimi Chen (who worked evenings on KSCA in the 1990s), Cynthia Dee and Jeff Gonzer from KMET.

References

Small text== External links ==

• Station Website
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• KSWD in Nielsen Audio's FM station database
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