KDEY-FM

KDEY-FM (93.5 FM, "93.5 KDAY") is a classic hip-hop formatted radio station serving the Riverside/San Bernardino area. The station is owned by Magic Broadcasting and broadcast at 93.5 MHz on the FM dial.^[1] The station's city of license is Ontario, California. KDEY-FM has a transmitter located on Haven Mountain to the north of Ontario, whose signal range will encompass Hesperia, Diamond Bar, Murrieta and will reach as far as Cabazon.

From 2004 to 2008, KDEY-FM and KDAY in Redondo Beach, California were a pair of synchrocasting^[2] radio stations serving the LA/Orange County and Riverside/San Bernardino. But on August 14, 2008 both stations ended their simulcast when KDAY increased its signal coverage and began focusing on the Los Angeles area as a Urban Contemporary/Urban Talk outlet targeting 18-49 year olds, while this station changed to KWIE and flipped formats to cover the Inland Empire. After a year as a Rhythmic AC, KWIE returned to simulcasting KDAY in September 2009 as KDEY-FM.

KDEY has a transmitter located in Rancho Cucamonga.

Station history

The 93.5 in Ontario was KNTF from the early 80's until 1990 when it became "Thunder Country" for a very short time. In the early 1990s, this became hot a/c KRZE, "The Breeze". Former staff members of KRZE include Steve Craig mid-days at WRXP New York, Kevin Barrett-program director at XTRA Sports San Francisco, and Lisa Osborne-anchor at KFI News. Formerly both Torrance and Ontario stations begun in the 1950s had call signs similar to each other: KFXM(AM) in Ontario (for San Bernardino) and KFXT(AM) in Torrance (for Los Angeles).

Soon after it aired a block programming primarily purchased by Korean broadcasters. In the mid-1990s, it began simulcasting the Redondo Beach station in its various formats, first as KRZE, then KREA, KFSB, KZBA and KNJR, its full-length programming in the Korean Language, was known as "Radio Korea" until 1999 when KNJR of Ontario/KZBA of Torrance switched to Spanish language musical, known as "Radio Grupera".

In 2004 the station became the simulcast for KDAY, offering a Hip-Hop/R&B format and took the KDAI calls to match its sister station's on-air handle. The signal was used to cover the eastern portions of Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire. Despite the effort to cover the area, it was signal challenged. In 2006 the KDAI calls were replaced with the KWIE calls. After three years of simulcasting Magic announced that KDAY would get a signal upgrade and cover more of the Los Angeles area as a Urban Contemporary/Urban Talk outlet. The move also ended the simulcast of KDAY and KWIE in August 2008, with KWIE being "launched" as "FLO 93.5."

The "FLO 93.5" approach was started by Don McCoy, CEO of Magic Broadcasting, which is headquartered in Panama City, Florida and began broadcasting on August 14, 2008 with a Rhythmic Adult Contemporary format. The first 90 days of broadcasting was proposed to be commercial free. In an interview with The Press-Enterprise, station sales manager Colleen Bambrick described the new format in a telephone interview: "FLO 93.5 will be rhythmic adult contemporary....We'll play artists like Alicia Keys, Carlos Santana, Usher maybe a Mary J. Blige.^[3]"

Unfortunately KDEY's Rhythmic AC format did not perform well in the ratings. In September 2009, KDEY-FM dropped the format and returned to simulcasting KDAY's Classic Hip-Hop format. The latter had dropped their syndicated-heavy Urban Contemporary approach in August 2009 after it too had poor ratings.

In December 2010, Magic Broadcasting made a deal with SoCal935 LLC to sell KDEY-FM and sister station KDAY. The deal gained FCC approval on December 8, 2011, but was never consummated after three extensions of time to do so.^[1]

See also

• KDAY

References

External links

• Magic Broadcasting LLC official website
• KDEY-FM official website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KDEY
• Radio-Locator information on KDEY
• Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KDEY