1978 was the year KDWN starting running Lee Pete's sports show on Saturday nights. It was brokered, sponsored in full by the old Castaways casino on the strip, but broadcast from the K-DAWN studios downtown. This is the show that eventually became the Stardust line.
Even in their early talk days, KDWN ran little or no brokered programming. The most enjoyable time period to listen to KDWN IMO was the 1980s..they ran live and local talk shows arond the clock. Roy Masters was the only exception, but his show seemed to fit in perfectly with what they were doing. Art Bell was awesome back then, his show was about politics and current events, not UFOs. His show was so interesting that my heart would pound in excitement when I heard his opening theme bumper music. Coast 2 Coast AM uses that same opening theme to this day, that shows national audience has no idea what a long history that opening music bed has.
KDWN started running brokered shows in the late 80s/early 90s. When they first picked up Rush Limbaugh in 1990 they actually tape delayed the show to make room for a brokered gardening show! I would say the worst era for KDWN was from the mid-1990s up until the time Beasley bought them..way too many infomercials. The only good thing KDWN did during that time period was pick up Michael Savage..which was probably just a favor to Roy Masters...they didn't intentionally put on an entertaining show.
I would say right now under Beasley K-DAWN is the best they have been in 20 years. My only complaint is the weekends, where they are basically unlistenable due to all the horrible paid programming.
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