KDWN
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KDWN-AM 720 ("The Talk Of The West") is an AM radio station based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Its frequency is 720 kHz and broadcasts full-time at 50,000 watts, directional. It can be heard throughout most of the Western United States, north into Canada and south into Mexico. KDWN is primarily a news-talk radio station featuring a conservative outlook with talk show hosts such as Michael Savage, Michael Reagan and Mark Edwards and also broadcasts paid radio shows for Las Vegas casinos and other groups. KDWN also is the station where famous late-night talk show host Art Bell first broadcast his show, Coast to Coast AM. As a word, it is pronunciated as "Kay Dawn".
History
KDWN-AM first came on the air in April 1975. They began as a music oriented radio station playing mostly soft AC. KDWN was one of a string of AM stations that played music around that time in the mid 1970's. The music format lasted 4 years till around Christmas 1979.In January 1980, KDWN-AM switched to talk radio. KDWN was the only talk station in town and one of the first responders of the 1980 MGM grand fire for which they won an award. In recent years, however, KDWN no longer sends reporters out to stories, as is the case with virtually all other Las Vegas radio stations. [link] KDWN closed its newsroom in the early 1990's, according to a poster on the message board site Radio-Info. [link]KDWN was one of the very first talk stations to air Rush Limbaugh in 1988 but lost his show to rival KXNT in 1996.
KDWN was founded by A.J. Williams, who owned the station until his death in 2005 [link]. KDWN was unique in that, unlike most Las Vegas stations, it remained independent of large radio chains such as Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting. The continuity of ownership ensured a continuity of station sound. The station continued to rely on aging hosts who in some cases had been with the station since it started in the talk format. The station did well in the ratings as one of the first generation of talk stations, but began a slow decline in the early 1990's [link]. In some ways the station is a stylistic throwback to 1970s talk radio. Call screening was not used until recently [link], and the station has a disproportionate amount of locally originated talk for a market the size of Las Vegas. [link]. In March of 2006, Beasley Broadcasting announced plans to buy the station for $17 million. [link] A Las Vegas newspaper reported a rumor that KDWN would change to an all-sports format effective July 1, 2006, however, this has not happened.
Hosts
Most notable local KDWN hosts are Ted Bair (retired in Feburary of 2005), Tru Hawkins, Jim Dallas, Art Bell (no longer on station), Mark Edwards, Doug Basham, Jim Austin, Ken Stahl, Jack Daniels & Mike England, Ken Koester (retired in 2001, moved to northern California), Cheryl Godfrey, Mystic Mona, Jim Dallas and Pete Moss.References
Founder of KDWN 720 AM Talk radio Dies [link]KDWN Program Schedule [link]
External links
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