KESN

KESN
City of license Allen, Texas
Broadcast area Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex/
Ardmore/Durant/Sherman/
Gainesville
Branding "ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM"
Slogan "First For Sports in Dallas/Fort Worth"
Frequency 103.3 MHz (also on HD Radio)
First air date Early 1990s as KEMM
Format Sports
ERP 98,000 watts
HAAT 606 meters
Class C
Facility ID 58265
Transmitter coordinates 33°32′08″N 96°49′54″W / 33.53556°N 96.83167°WCoordinates: 33°32′08″N 96°49′54″W / 33.53556°N 96.83167°W
Callsign meaning ESPN
Former callsigns KEMM (early 1990s-2001)
Affiliations ESPN Radio
Dallas Mavericks (NBA)
Owner The Walt Disney Company
(Operated by Cumulus Media under LMA)
(KESN Assets, LLC)
Sister stations Because of Cumulus LMA:
KLIF, KLIF-FM, KPLX, KTCK, KTCK-FM, KSCS, WBAP
The Walt Disney Company also owns KMKI
Webcast Listen Live (via Triton Digital)
Website kesn1033.com

KESN (103.3 FM) is a Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas based sports talk radio station. It is owned by The Walt Disney Company as an ESPN Radio owned affiliate. However, as of August 7, 2013, it is operated by Cumulus Media. The station's studios are located in the Victory Park district in Dallas just north of downtown, and the transmitter site is in Collinsville.

History

From 1983-2000, 103.3 FM for Dallas/Fort Worth was licensed to Commerce, Texas, and held the call letters KEMM. The station operated a country music format. KEMM went silent on September 28, 2000. The city of license and tower were moved to Allen, Texas in 2001 and the station was re-launched on April 27, 2001 as KESN with the new all sports format. Fourteen outlying stations were rearranged and relocated to make way for this frequency to move into DFW, all at ABC/Disney's expense.

KESN is the flagship for Dallas Mavericks basketball and Texas Christian University football and men's basketball. Among its most notable local programs was Galloway and Company, hosted by Randy Galloway until his retirement in October 2013.[1]

Despite different owners and a merger of ABC Radio Networks to Citadel Broadcasting; KESN, WBAP-AM, and WFAA-TV maintain a strong partnership (as WFAA is the local ABC television affiliate). In early 2006, "103.3 ESPN" welcomed WFAA-TV personality Dale Hansen, former Dallas Cowboys radio analyst and host on rival station KTCK, to the station. KTCK had become the Cowboys' flagship station and many speculated that Hansen leaving KTCK for KESN was due to his criticism of the team. The official explanation, however, was that Hansen's ratings did not justify his salary request.

Share ratings for KESN's primary shows lag behind that of KTCK, Sportsradio 1310, "The Ticket," their chief sports-talk radio rival in the Dallas/Fort Worth market In current ratings books, KESN has had many more cume listeners than KTCK. Which means that, as the ratings show, while more total people may listen to KESN at various points throughout the day, roughly twice as many people are listening to KTCK at any given time.

Its new sister station KZMP AM, which airs Spanish language sports programming, can be heard on 1540 AM.

Beginning in the 2011 Major League Baseball season, KESN & KZMP acquired rights to broadcast all Texas Rangers baseball games for the next four years. Its English broadcasts would air on this station while the Spanish-language broadcasts air on KZMP.[2] This is in addition to the Dallas Mavericks audio broadcasts. This remained the case until the 2015 season, when the Rangers returned to KRLD.

Until mid-2011, KESN was broadcasting in HD Radio. With its HD2 signal simulcasting KZMP-AM (ESPN Deportes Radio) and its HD3 substation broadcast an audio simulcast of ESPNews. For reasons unknown, the HD broadcasts were discontinued.

On August 7, 2013, it was announced that Cumulus Media, owner of KESN's rival KTCK 1310 The Ticket, will take over operations of ESPN 103.3 through a long term local marketing agreement with Disney. Programming on both stations will currently remain the same. The deal will take effect once Cumulus closes on the sale of FM station KTDK 104.1 of Sanger to Whitley Media.[3][4] However on September 20, 2013; the Federal Communications Commission rejected the sale citing that the license transfer is not a true sale in that all economic risk would remain with Cumulus as Whitley would get the same brokerage fee regardless of the price he sells the station for, Cumulus would remain the defacto owner of the station.[5] The License of KTDK 104.1 was cancelled and its callsign was deleted by the FCC on October 18, 2013 at the request of Cumulus.

Current lineup

References

  1. ↑ http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/article3836072.html
  2. ↑ Rangers join ESPN 103.3 FM, 1540 AM - ESPN Dallas/Fort Worth (released December 8, 2010)
  3. ↑ Cumulus to LMA ESPN 103.3 Dallas - Radio Insight (released August 7, 2013)
  4. ↑ Sportsradio 1310 The Ticket to operate ESPN Radio in Dallas - The Dallas Morning News (released August 7, 2013)
  5. ↑ - Radio Insight (Released September 20, 2013)

External links