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KCAL 1410 Spanish History

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

During my research I see that KCAL 1410 has been a Spanish station for a long time. Would anybody know when it began as Spanish? I see that in the yearbooks the KCAL did Spanish 91 hrs weekly. That is almost a full schedule. And by 1964 it was doing Spanish 100% of the time.

Thanks
Tommy C.
 
thebeach33445 said:
Hey Guys:

During my research I see that KCAL 1410 has been a Spanish station for a long time. Would anybody know when it began as Spanish? I see that in the yearbooks the KCAL did Spanish 91 hrs weekly. That is almost a full schedule. And by 1964 it was doing Spanish 100% of the time.

Thanks
Tommy C.
Click to expand...

Andy James, who was the manager of KWKW in Los Angeles, bought KCAL and began operating it in Spanish sometime in late 1967 or very early 1968. It was not until around 1971 that James left KWKW to run KCAL fulltime.
 
Hey David,

I always trust your answers because you are so knowledgeable in radio but I have to say are you sure? I saw an article in Cashbox or maybe Billboard. That in MAY 1964 KCAL was 100% doing Spanish 24 hours a day.

Also David. Would you know the branding of KCAL during the years as a Spanish Station? I see it was La Mexicana in the 90's(around 1994). Was it also called Radio Tri Color in 2001 and La Mejor 1410 too?

Thanks
Tommy C.
 
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I'm also curious how Disney (I believe it was Disney that bought it from RKO?) was able to use the KCAL call letters when it purchased Channel 9, formerly known as KHJ-TV.


thebeach33445 said:
Hey David,

I always trust your answers because you are so knowledgeable in radio but I have to say are you sure? I saw an article in Cashbox or maybe Billboard. That in MAY 1964 KCAL was 100% doing Spanish 24 hours a day.

Also David. Would you know the branding of KCAL during the years as a Spanish Station? I see it was La Mexicana in the 90's(around 1994). Was it also called Radio Tri Color in 2001 and La Mejor 1410 too?

Thanks
Tommy C.
Click to expand...
 
thebeach33445 said:
Hey David,

I always trust your answers because you are so knowledgeable in radio but I have to say are you sure? I saw an article in Cashbox or maybe Billboard. That in MAY 1964 KCAL was 100% doing Spanish 24 hours a day.

Also David. Would you know the branding of KCAL during the years as a Spanish Station? I see it was La Mexicana in the 90's(around 1994). Was it also called Radio Tri Color in 2001 and La Mejor 1410 too?

Thanks
Tommy C.
Click to expand...

I think 1410 had some brokered time, and may have had a bit of Spanish programming prior to Andy's purchase of it.

KCAL was a 1000 watt daytimer back then, too, so prior to around early 1968, it could not have been anything 24/7. It did not go to 5 kw with 500 watts at night until around the time Andy James bought it. I may have heard this wrong back when I was at KWKW, but I think his purchase of the station was contingent on getting the 5-year-old CP built and approved.

I do not remember the branding on KCAL. It was, in later years, one of those "format of the year" stations once Spanish language FM became dominant in the late 90's.

Neither the '64 nor '65 Broadcasting Yearbook's list KCAL in the section on Foreign Language Programming
 
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Doctah said:
I'm also curious how Disney (I believe it was Disney that bought it from RKO?) was able to use the KCAL call letters when it purchased Channel 9, formerly known as KHJ-TV.
Click to expand...

Doctah:

By the early 1980s, the FCC had amended the call letter rules so that the same call letters could be used on different bands in different cities. One of the first examples of that in practice was CBS re-branding KNXT, Channel 2 as KCBS-TV. KCBS-AM was and is in San Francisco. KCBS-FM had been in use in San Francisco until 1982, and was dormant until it was applied to 93.1 in Los Angeles in 1991. There was no KCBS-TV in San Francisco as CBS did not own a TV station. It affiliated with KPIX-TV, which has since become a CBS-owned and operated station through the merger of Westinghouse and CBS.

The rules also allowed the company using the call letters to agree to their use by another company in another market (again, on another band). So, with KCAL on AM and FM in the Inland Empire, but no KCAL-TV, Disney was able to make a deal.
 
According to Radio-Locator, KCAL 1410 runs 5,000 watts by day, 4,000 watts at night, with Redlands as its City of License. The tower is north of Redlands and east of San Bernardino.

But it has a construction permit to go 3,000 watts day, 2,200 watts night, and move its COL to Grand Terrace, with the tower relocated several miles closer to San Bernardino, near San Gorgonio High School, with the signal pointed toward Riverside.

I don't know if it's made that move.
 
Hey David:

This is where I found a list of stations doing Spanish language programming and with KCAL 1410 on it it says Spanish 100% in 1964. I see what you are talking about. The yearbooks 64 to 67 has no special programming for KCAL 1410 AM. Before that it had Spanish Programming 91 hrs wkly. It adds up to 13 hrs a day 7 days a week. Also noticed that KCAL was on air from 6AM-6PM or 7PM 7 days a week. Found that info from The San Bernadino Sun.


http://www.americanradiohistory.com...1964-05-25-BC-OCR-Page-0079.pdf#search="kcal"

Tommy C.
 
I seem to remember KCAL-AM having some sort of Aztec or Azteca branding in the 70's. They had a very popular remote studio inside the Mexican Village at the LA County Fair for more than a few years.
 
thebeach33445 said:
Hey David:

This is where I found a list of stations doing Spanish language programming and with KCAL 1410 on it it says Spanish 100% in 1964. I see what you are talking about. The yearbooks 64 to 67 has no special programming for KCAL 1410 AM. Before that it had Spanish Programming 91 hrs wkly. It adds up to 13 hrs a day 7 days a week. Also noticed that KCAL was on air from 6AM-6PM or 7PM 7 days a week. Found that info from The San Bernadino Sun.


http://www.americanradiohistory.com...1964-05-25-BC-OCR-Page-0079.pdf#search="kcal"

Tommy C.
Click to expand...

My source is the same Yearbook as you found on my website. KCAL signed on in 1954 and within the year was the ABC affiliate for the Redlands area. It appears that they tried some Spanish for a couple of years, roughly 1961 to 1964, but were doing something in English when Andy James (Farkas) bought the station and upgraded it.

The brief Spanish period in the early 60's is documented in Sponsor magazine.

Daytime stations operate from legal local sunrise to sundown, rounded to the nearest 15 minute increment. So, from 1954 to 1967 KCAL would have operated from about 7 AM to 5 PM in the winter, and 5 AM to nearly 9 PM in the summer.
 
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