WDGY

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Radio Rey (WDGY)
Broadcast area	Minneapolis-St. Paul
Frequency	630 kHz AM
Format	Regional Mexican
Owner	Borgen Broadcasting

WDGY (630 kHz AM, "Radio Rey") is a small Spanish-language radio station with studios located on Lake Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is currently licensed to the neighboring city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it had been licensed to Hudson, Wisconsin, prior to 2005.

[edit] History

The WDGY callsign was used for another well-known station in the area from 1925 until 1991 and broadcast at 1130 kHz. The call letters WDGY were based on the name of the founder Dr. George Young. That station has evolved into KFAN (see that article for more information). The station was widely nicknamed "Weegee."

For many years, 630 was home to Top-40 powerhouse KDWB, from 1959 until 1985, the last few years simulcasting its FM sister.

The station started off as a collaboration between three brothers who named it WCOW ("WPIG" or "KPIG" was apparently rejected), which was an odd station playing country and old-time music when it first went on the air in 1951 at 1590 kHz. Vic, Nick, and Al Tedesco, who had previously put together a station in Stillwater, Minnesota, attempted to get into television on channel 17 the next year, but financial backing fell through. The channel 17 allocation was taken by Twin Cities Public Television in 1965. In the early days, WCOW signed on with a cowbell.

WCOW was not very successful, so the station transitioned to being a female-oriented station with the call sign WISK in 1957, and the frequency was changed to 630 kHz the next year. Again, the format was not popular, and the station was soon bought out by Crowell-Collier Broadcasting Company, who owned KFWB and KEWB in California. The top 40 format of those stations was brought to Minnesota, and the KDWB call sign came into use in 1959. It quickly became a major competitor to WDGY, which had been playing a pop music format since the spring of 1956. With the 630 kHz frequency, KDWB called itself "Channel 63." A memorable bumper had an arch-voiced man deliver the line "63. That's easy to remember", with aristocratic melifulousness and not a trace of irony.

KDWB was fined in the early 1960s for transmission violations, and a fire at the station knocked it off the air for a few days later that decade.

By 1974, the AM dial in the Twin Cities was crowded with rock stations. In addition to KDWB, longtime competitor WDGY, the new WYOO ("Super U-100") and KSTP-AM all tried to lay claim to the local top 40 radio crown. However, this was shortlived, as stations soon began jumping over to the FM dial. U-100 was already simulcasting on 101.3 FM, and KSTP had an FM station as well. Doubleday Broadcasting, then the owner of KDWB, desperately wanted an FM signal. And WYOO's owners were looking to sell their two stations. In February 1976, Doubleday announced it would be buying WYOO-FM with the intention of simulcasting KDWB on the FM signal. Since one company could not own two AM or FM stations in the same market at the time, the owner of WAYL 93.7 FM agreed to purchase the AM station. WYOO-FM signed off for the last time at midnight on September 15, 1976, and KDWB morning personality Don Bleu launched the new KDWB-AM and FM the following morning at 6 AM. The next week, the new owner of WYOO-AM flipped it to a simulcast of its easy listening sister.

Both KDWB-AM and KDWB-FM simulcast at first, then the FM was split off into its own station, the album oriented rock station that became known as "Stereo 101". A new FM top 40 station, WLOL, signed on in 1981 and gave KDWB-AM stiff competition. WCCO-FM also briefly joined the FM Top 40 fray. This, coupled with the decline of pop music on AM radio, resulted in Stereo 101 returning to the simulcast with its AM sibling, this time as the dominant station (it was now called "101 KDWB" rather than "63 KDWB").

Over the next few years, both stations continued to simulcast, until KDWB-AM split off with its own automated syndicated oldies format as "K63". In 1991 630 AM picked up the WDGY call letters after 1130 dropped them to become KFAN, and adopted a classic country music format as well. Ratings for the country format did not meet up to expectations, and in September 1992, they returned to a simulcast with KDWB (The legal ID at the top of the hour identified both KDWB and WDGY, and Arbitron listed them as KDWB/WDGY).

WDGY switched to an adult standards format in March 1993, which gave it a respectable boost in ratings. As KDWB's owners were looking to sell WDGY, the owner of WMIN agreed to lease the station through a local marketing agreement. This was short-lived, as 630 went dark after losing the site of its broadcast tower in Woodbury when the owners decided to redevelop the property.

WDGY was resurrected a few years later as a Hudson, Wisconsin-based station with a new owner and the same call letters, airing a talk radio format that featured hosts like Don and Mike. Eventually, the programmers of "Radio Rey" leased the station and started broadcasting the current Spanish-language format from a grocery store in St. Paul. Recently, WDGY moved its tower closer to the Twin Cities area.

[edit] See also

• KDWB
• KFAN

[edit] External links

• WDGY Radio Rey 630 AM
• Radiotapes.com: featuring historic airchecks of WDGY and other Twin Cities radio stations
• Oldiesloon.com, featuring information about former Twin Cities Top 40 stations
• The Airheads Radio Survey Archive for 63 KDWB
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WDGY