KDSP (AM)

KDSP
City Thornton, Colorado
Broadcast area Denver-Boulder-Longmont and Northern Colorado
Branding Denver Sports 760
Slogan The Voice of Broncos Country
Frequency 760 kHz (also on HD Radio)
Translator(s) 107.9 K300CP (Denver)
Repeater(s) 103.5-2 KRFX-HD2
First air date June 15, 1987 (as KJIM)
Format Sports Talk
Power 50,000 watts day
1,000 watts night
Class B
Facility ID 29740
Transmitter coordinates 40°0′33″N 104°56′21″W / 40.00917°N 104.93917°W / 40.00917; -104.93917
Callsign meaning Denver's SPorts Radio
Former callsigns KJIM (1987-1990)
KRZN (1990-1993)
KTLK (1993-2002)
KKZN (2002-2015)
Affiliations Fox Sports Radio
CBS Sports Radio
Owner iHeartMedia, Inc.
(Citicasters Licenses, Inc.)
Sister stations KBCO, KHOW, KBPI, KPTT, KOA, KRFX, KTCL
Webcast Listen Live
Website DenverSports760.com

KDSP (760 kHz) is a commercial AM sports radio station licensed to Thornton, Colorado and serving the Denver-Boulder media market. Known as "The Voice of Broncos Country", the call letters stand for Denver SPorts. KDSP carries a number of nationally syndicated shows from both Fox Sports Radio and CBS Sports Radio, as well as local programming. Local hosts include Dave Logan & Susie Wargin, and Andy Lindhal. In addition, the station airs syndicated shows from Dan Patrick, Colin Cowherd, Jay Mohr and Scott Ferrall.

KDSP is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc., with studios in Southeast Denver, while the transmitter site is off Colorado Boulevard (County Road 13) in Brighton.[1] KDSP operates at 50,000 watts, the maximum power permitted by the Federal Communications Commission. But it reduces its nighttime power to 1,000 watts and uses a directional antenna to protect the dominant Class A station on 760 AM, WJR in Detroit. (Clear-channel stations are protected within a 750-mile radius of the transmitter site.)

KDSP is the flagship play-by-play station for basketball games of the men's and women's teams of the University of Colorado. These games are sometimes switched to other iHeartMedia stations in the Denver area owing to schedule conflicts.

History

Early history

The station went on the air as KJIM on June 15, 1987. On January 2, 1990, the station changed its call sign to KRZN, and on December 13, 1993 to KTLK. On January 7, 2002, the station's call sign was changed to KKZN.[2]

The station initially started with an all-Christian all-talk format. It was owned by Woody Sudbrink from Florida. The station hosted satellite radio and Christian news/talk. The station also played Contemporary Christian Music with a Top 40/Album Oriented Rock hybrid style. Though the studio was new and built out for talk, very little took place there. In November 1987, Jann Scott of Boulder started broadcasting Addiction Free Radio on weekends. In the Spring of 1988, Scott became English talk program director. Scott launched Jann Scott Live, Race Day Radio Magazine and gave people such as Claudia Lamb and Bill Hammel their start in radio. The station programmed Mexican music in the Mornings and evenings up until 1990. Jann Scott is one of the few hosts on the station to win 2 Westword's Best Talk show Host awards: 1988 for Addiction Free Radio and 1989 for Race Day Radio Magazine. He also won Rocky Mountain News Top 10 Ten Colorado Broadcaster award.

In the 1990s, the station moved to Music and then, in 2002, to all-sports as "760 The Zone," from which the KKZN call sign is derived. After that, the station switched to progressive talk as the Denver affiliate of the Air America radio network in August 2004.

AM 760: Colorado's Progressive Talk

During its previous progressive talk format, the most popular local talk host on KKZN was David Sirota, also a newspaper columnist. In March 2009, Sirota took over the morning time slot of The Jay Marvin Show, hosted by local talk show host Jay Marvin, when Marvin was forced off the air due to ill health. Sirota moved to Clear Channel Communications sister station KHOW in 2012, co-hosting an afternoon show with Michael Brown until Sirota's departure in January 2013.[3]

Besides broadcasting progressive talk shows, KKZN also ran what it called a Blue List. This list included companies that supported progressive causes and interests. The station also sponsored progressive events throughout the Colorado Front Range, such as events for the ACLU and other progressive organizations.

On January 21, 2010, Air America filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, and ceased live programming the same night. Reruns of Air America's programming continued to air until Monday January 25, 2010 at 7 pm Mountain Time.

Real Talk 760

On May 7, 2014, Denver Post television critic Joan Ostrow reported that Gloria Neal, who anchors the 6 pm newscast on KCNC-TV along with hosting KKZN's morning show, had been released from her contract, and mentioned on Facebook that the entire staff had been let go, suggesting an oncoming format change.[4][5]

On May 19, 2014, KKZN shifted their format to lifestyle/advice talk, branded as "Real Talk 760" with all syndicated personalities, including Dave Ramsey, Jim Bohannon, Clark Howard, Dr. Joy Browne, and Tom Martino, along with a late night radio replay of TMZ Live. Weekends, besides Leo Laporte's The Tech Guy, consisted of brokered programming.

Denver Sports 760

On December 10, 2015, KKZN changed call letters to KDSP, and flipped to sports as "Denver Sports 760" on January 4, 2016, affiliating with Fox Sports Radio. (KEPN and KKFN were the Fox Sports outlets in Denver but they became the local ESPN Radio network affiliates on the same day.)[6][7][8]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/9/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.