KDAY

'KDAY' in Redondo Beach and 'KWIE' in Ontario, are a pair of synchrocasting^[1] radio stations based in South Los Angeles that airs a Mainstream Urban format, playing Hip Hop and R&B. Up until July 2007, they were also the only pure Urban Contemporary station in at least two markets: LA/Orange County and Riverside/San Bernardino. The stations are owned by Magic Broadcasting and both broadcast at 93.5MHz on the FM dial.

Contents

History

The 93.5 frequency

The "Original" KDAY

The "New" KDAY

Competition

Personalities

Trivia

External links

References

History

The 93.5 frequency

The two stations now simulcasting at 93.5 were once distinct stations, one licensed to Redondo Beach, California and the other licensed to Ontario, California.
The 93.5 in Redondo Beach signed on in the early 1970s or earlier as KKOP and played mellow pop music and even copied the playlist of the now defunct KNHS 89.7 of Torrance. Later in the 1970s the call letters KFOX were assigned to the station, which like its predecessor at 1280AM (now KFRN) played country music. This format continued until the mid-1980s, when the owner decided to sell blocks of air time to various producers; KFOX evolved into a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual format. In the mid-1990s, this became "Radio Korea USA" with an all-Korean format. This continued until 1999, when the Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which, as a condition of selling 96.3 KXOL-FM moved the KFSG call letters and format to 93.5, which was acquired by 96.3's new owners, Spanish Broadcasting System, specifically for the purpose of relocating KFSG. In 2002, the lease arrangement with Foursquare ended, and SBS switched to a Spanish-language outlet, first as KMJR, then as (La Mejor) and later KZAB.
The 93.5 in Ontario was KNTF, another country music outlet known as "Thunder Country." In the early 1990s, this became smooth jazz KREZ, "The Breeze." In the mid-1990s, it began simulcasting the Redondo Beach station in its various formats, first as KRZE, then KREA, KFSB, KNJR, and KZBA.

The "Original" KDAY

93.5 K-DAY is a resurrection of Southern California's first all Hip-hop radio station, AM 1580 KDAY went on the air in 1983, where the station broadcasted from Crenshaw Boulevard in South Central Los Angeles. During the 1980s KDAY featured a plethora of r&b and West Coast rappers and helped bring the West Coast rap scene into prominence. Its musical director, Greg Mack, transformed N.W.A from an unknown group to one of the most prolific musicians of the hip-hop generation. It also launched the careers of Dr. Dre and DJ Yella with their World Class Wrecking Cru, a popular mix show of the time. AM 1580 KDAY was sold in 1990 and turned into a business-oriented radio station. It is believed that KKBT succeeded the KDAY format, as it primarily focused on hip-hop music. Today, 1580AM is KBLA, a Spanish-language evangelical Christian station.

The "New" KDAY

KDAY was resurrected as an FM station in summer 2004, with a new campaign "Hip-Hop Today and Back in the Day." During its first few weeks, KDAY aired continuous music with no commercials and no disc jockeys. Shortly after, KDAY signed on some of Southern California's most popular DJs, including former West Coast female rapper rapper Yo-Yo, The Baka Boyz and Julio G, all of which previously were at KKBT. Today, as its campaign suggests, KDAY plays a variety of hip-hop and R&B from the 80's, 90's, and now.
In April 2006, KDAY began moving away from a Rhythmic Contemporary leaning direction to an Urban Contemporary approach as the station refocuses its target audience towards African Americans. This was probably in response to competitor KPWR tilting back from Urban to Rhythmic in order to successfully target Hispanic listeners. A month later, long-time hip-hop/R&B station KKBT, due to sinking ratings, eliminated hip hop from the format in favor of becoming a mixture of Urban AC and urban talk radio, similar in format to KHHT and KJLH. (Only afterwards did KKBT "The Beat" change its calls and name to KRBV "V-100".) In addition, KDAY brought Steve Harvey on board on Memorial Day weekend 2006. Harvey had been released by KKBT the previous year; just weeks later, rival KKBT signed on Tom Joyner, a friend of Harvey's, to carry his syndicated morning show there, but in December of 2006 KKBT would ax Joyner due to low ratings for Joyner, partly attributed to Harvey's success. Technically, the Steve Harvey Show plays R&B music on an Urban AC format, which backs up KDAY's Urban Contemporary format, rather than Mainstream Urban or Urban Top 40. Since the format altering, KDAY added slow jams during nighttime and gospel music on Sunday mornings.
On July 23, 2007 KDAY/KDAI began to moving away from the Urban Contemporary format back to a Mainstream Urban format, under the consultancy of Harry Lyles and newly-installed PD Theo. In a statement to the website All Access, Lyles commented to the changes: "I am very excited and thrilled to be working with Don McCoy, Roy Laughlin and Theo. All we're doing is playing to the taste of Los Angeles and if we play what they want, they will listen. With PPM coming, this will make things a lot more interesting in Los Angeles." The move also ends (for now) another attempt to fill the Urban Contemporary void in the market - which is predominately Hispanic anyway with a loss of Urban radio presence and success in the African American community. The format turnback might have been spurred by Magic's sale of KWIE. It is unclear right now if Steve Harvey will be able to continue to stay on KDAY or if he will be dropped in a wake of the format altering, A similar situation happened in Sacramento when KBMB dropped Doug Banks upon the urban-to-rhythmic format shift (and new ownership) in 2004. The KDAY call letters were originally intended to be dropped in favor of the station changing to Wild 93.5 and picking up KWIE calls in its place. For a time, the station only referenced itself as "93.5" in the promos until it can come up with a name and calls to fit the Mainstream Urban format. This happened in July 2007, when the sale of KWIE "Wild 96.1" was completed to Liberman Broadcasting and that station became KRQB. The KWIE call sign moved to the Ontario station, which was KDAI.^[2]
KDAY 93.5 remains as the only pure Mainstream Urban radio station left in the Los Angeles County, California area

Competition

The following stations compete with KDAY for essentially the same audience:

★ Los Angeles/Orange County: KIIS-FM, KPWR, KXOL-FM, KRBV, KHHT,KJLH

★ Inland Empire: KGGI

Personalities

★ ''The Steve Harvey Morning Show'' with Shirley Strawberry, Nephew Tommy, Ann Tripp, & Carla Ferrell. Producer - BoBo

★ Theo Mizuhara

★ Julio G & Melo D

★ The Goodfellas

★ Baka Boyz

★ Melo D

★ DJ Icy Ice

★ B Woods

★ Jayne Daniels

★ Matt McDaniel

★ Bigg PeeWee

★ BoBo

★ Moe Coop

★ Yo Yo

★ Randy Jackson

★ Get Up Stand Up

★ Julio G

Trivia

★ Tupac Shakur gives a shout out to KDAY in the song "To Live & Die in LA"

★ Julio G, was a DJ for the fictional Radio Los Santos radio station in the videogame . Radio Los Santos is loosely based on K-Day.

★ KDAY was also referenced in the cover art for the Frank Zappa album 'Overnight Sensation' on a Stage Pass.

★ In the movie The Wood, it showed actor Sean Nelson who was playing as Mike when he was young in 1986 turning on the radio and hearing a DJ playing a Biz Markie song and saying "you got it on right here on AM 1580 KDAY"

★ KDAY was also referenced in "Rappcats, Vol. 3" by Quasimoto/Madlib

External links

★ 93.5 KDAY's official website

★ Steve Harvey Is Back On-the-Air in L.A.

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★ K-HDZ HeadzUp FM A Alternative Hip-Hop Radio Station streaming 24/7 in a mixtape format

References

1. http://www.donmccoy.com/story.html
2. http://web.yes.com/station/KDAY