WFNO

WFNO, branded as "La Caliente 830am," is a Mexican Regional formatted radio station serving the New Orleans, Louisiana area. The station is owned by Sunburst Media Louisiana, and broadcasts at 830 kHz with 5000 watts of daytime and 750 watts of nighttime power from Norco, Louisiana.

History

On February 22, 1985 the station signed on as WADU with an Adult Contemporary format targeting the western suburbs of New Orleans. It became a Spanish Contemporary outlet with the WFNO call letters on March 25, 1996.

For much of WFNO’s existence under the moniker “La Fabulosa 830,” programming was very general and centered around Regional Mexican and Tropical Music formats along with a variety of drive time programs that included local and international news updates. Other programming included sports talk programs airing in the afternoons, religious programming, public affairs programs, and radio news magazines that included reporting from CNN en Español.

Near WFNO’s largest format change on July 1, 2011 to a strictly Regional Mexican station under the moniker “La Raza 830am” along with the consequent changes to sister station KXMG-FM to a Spanish Contemporary Hit Radio formatted station, WFNO played a music format more closely aligned to Spanish Contemporary Hit Radio format with announcements in Spanish between songs that included “...the best is yet to come,” possibly alluding to the soon-to-come KXMG “La Mega 107.5” on the FM dial. Also during this transitionary time, a short-lived Rock en Español formatted program aired on weekday afternoons called “Órbita 830”, but was subsequently canceled after WFNO and KXMG switched formats.^[2]

Programming on WFNO formerly included shows such as “El Vacilón de la Mañana,” which now airs on sister station KXMG-FM “La Mega 107.5” with radio personalities Nasty and Potris. El Vacilón on KXMG, as it was known on WFNO, is still a morning drive time show. However when the program aired on WFNO, it included local news updates and international news bulletins from CNN en Español Radio. Other previous programs on WFNO included a midday music show hosted by José Hidalgo followed by a sports talk program with Emilio Peralta and Marco Antonio. In the evenings, drive time shows included sports talk programs like “Fútbol de Primera con Andrés Cantor”. Thursday evenings would air "Estudio Abierto" with Carolina Rossell, a community affairs program with interviews.

After 10 years on the air, Suplemento the cultural radio magazine hosted by broadcasting veterans Rafael Shabetai and Claudia Losúa-Vivanco decided to end its show on WFNO and moved to another local station, on its original air time of Saturday mornings. In 2012 management decided to move the show from its original airtime on Saturday morning to Sunday mornings. The show lost all its advertisers and most of its audience, due to the fact the vast majority of the Hispanic audience was attending church services in the time slot that was allowed to them. The last show broadcast on WFNO aired on 12/29/2013. It can be heard now on another local station.

On March 11, 2013, WFNO changed moniker to “La Caliente 830am.” The morning drive time show changed from “Las Hijas de la Mañana” to “El Despertador de la Mañana” with new on-air talent.

Programming

Programming consists of a continuous Regional Mexican music format.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WFNO
• Radio-Locator Information on WFNO
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WFNO