KRLA (870
kHz) "AM 870 The Answer" is a
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
AM radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
broadcasting a
talk radio format
A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when radio was compelle ...
.
Licensed to
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 U.S. Census the population was 196,543, up from 191,719 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth-larges ...
, it serves
Greater Los Angeles
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Co ...
and
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...
. The station is owned by
Salem Media Group
Salem Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: SALM; formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an American radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher formerly based in Camarillo, California (moved most operations to Irv ...
, which also owns 99.5
KKLA-FM
KKLA-FM (99.5 MHz, "99.5 KKLA") is a commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California and serving the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by the Salem Media Group and broadcasts a Christian talk and teaching format. The ...
which features a
Christian talk and teaching
Christian radio is a Christian media radio format that focus on programming with a Christian message. Many such broadcasters play contemporary Christian music, though many programs include sermons, radio dramas, as well as news and talk program ...
format, and 95.9
KFSH-FM with a
contemporary Christian music
Contemporary Christian music, also known as CCM, Christian pop, and occasionally inspirational music is a genre of modern popular music, and an aspect of Christian media, which is lyrically focused on matters related to the Christianity, Christi ...
format.
By day, KRLA transmits with 50,000
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
s, the maximum for commercial AM stations. Since
AM 870 is a
clear channel frequency reserved for
Class A WWL , KRLA must reduce power at sunset to 3,000 watts to reduce interference. It uses a
directional antenna
A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates or receives greater power in specific directions allowing increased performance and reduced interference from unwanted sources. Directional antennas provide increased performanc ...
with a three-
tower array
A tower array is an arrangement of multiple radio towers which are mast radiators in a phased array. They were originally developed as ground-based tracking radars. Tower arrays can consist of free-standing or guyed towers or a mix of them. Tower ...
. The
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...
is off El Reposo Drive in Los Angeles, near the
Glendale Freeway.
On weekdays, KRLA airs a local wake up show, "The Morning Answer" with hosts Jennifer Horn and Grant Stinchfield. The rest of the day, it carries
nationally syndicated
Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States where ...
shows from the co-owned
Salem Radio Network:
Mike Gallagher,
Dennis Prager
Dennis Mark Prager (; born August 2, 1948) is an American conservative radio talk show host and writer. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show ''The Dennis Prager Show''. In 2009, he co-founded PragerU, which creates five-m ...
,
Hugh Hewitt
Hugh Hewitt (born February 22, 1956) is an American radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network and an attorney, academic, and author. A conservative, he writes about law, society, politics, and media bias in the United States. Hewitt is ...
,
Charlie Kirk
Charles J. Kirk (born 1993) is an American conservative activist and radio talk show host. He founded Turning Point USA with Bill Montgomery in 2012, and has served as its executive director since. He is the CEO of Turning Point Action, Stud ...
and
Sebastian Gorka. KRLA also carries
Mark Levin
Mark Reed Levin (; born September 21, 1957) is an American lawyer, author, and radio personality. He is the host of syndicated radio show '' The Mark Levin Show'', as well as '' Life, Liberty & Levin'' on Fox News. Levin worked in the admin ...
, syndicated by
Westwood One
Westwood One is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates talk, music, and sports programming.
The company takes its name from an earlier network also named Westwood One, a company founded in 1978. The compan ...
. World and national news updates are provided by
Townhall News.
History
KIEV 870
In , the station
signed on
Signing may refer to:
* Using sign language
* Signature, placing one's name on a document
* Signature (disambiguation)
* Manual communication, signing as a form of communication using the hands in place of the voice
* Digital signature
A digi ...
the air as KIEV. It originally broadcast on 850
kilocycle
The cycle per second is a once-common English name for the unit of frequency now known as the hertz (Hz). The plural form was typically used, often written cycles per second, cycles/second, c.p.s., c/s, or, ambiguously, just cycles (Cy./Cyc.). T ...
s. It moved to 870 kHz in 1941 as a result of the
NARBA agreement. For most of its early years, KIEV was a
daytimer
A clear-channel station is an AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The system exists to ensure the viability of cross-co ...
, required to go off the air at sunset.
The station had various formats, including
Top 40
In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "cont ...
,
Country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
,
Big bands
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...
and
adult standards. Programs included ''Tomorrow's Heroes'' with Andrea Speyer, ''Talk Back with
George Putnam'', ''The Swingin' Years'' with host
Chuck Cecil
Charles Douglas "Chuck" Cecil (born November 8, 1964) is an American football coach and former player in the National Football League (NFL). He is currently the safeties coach at the University of Arizona in Tucson, his alma mater. He previou ...
, Grace to You with
John MacArthur John MacArthur or Macarthur may refer to:
*J. Roderick MacArthur (1920–1984), American businessman
* John MacArthur (American pastor) (born 1939), American evangelical minister, televangelist, and author
* John Macarthur (priest), 20th-century pr ...
,
horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...
from
Santa Anita Park
Santa Anita Park is a Thoroughbred racetrack in Arcadia, California, United States. It offers some of the prominent horse racing events in the United States during early fall, winter and in spring. The track is home to numerous prestigious races ...
and
Hollywood Park Racetrack
Hollywood Park was a thoroughbred race course located in Inglewood, California, about 3 miles (5 km) from Los Angeles International Airport and adjacent to the Forum indoor arena. In 1994, the original Hollywood Park Casino was added to ...
, and
University of Nebraska football.
Salem Communications bought KIEV in 1998 for $33.4 million.
KRLA talk (2001–present)
On January 1, 2001, 870 AM adopted the KRLA
call letters.
KRDC 1110 AM, had used those call letters for several decades, beginning in 1959, broadcasting an
oldies
Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as w ...
format.
Weekends on KRLA feature shows on law, pet care and financial advice, as well as
brokered programming. On June 14, 2010, KRLA added
Glenn Beck
Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and ra ...
's radio show to the weekday lineup, but the show was discontinued several years later. The KRLA-produced ''Terry Anderson Show'' aired on Sundays at 9 p.m., until Anderson died on July 7, 2010.
In 2014, rival talk radio station
KABC, owned by
Cumulus Media
Cumulus Media, Inc. is an American broadcasting company and is the third largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States behind Audacy and iHeartMedia. As of June 2019, Cumulus lists ownership of 428 stations in 8 ...
, discontinued the Mark Levin and
Larry Elder
Laurence Allen Elder (born April 27, 1952) is an American right-wing political commentator and conservative talk radio host. Elder hosts ''The Larry Elder Show'', based in California. The show began as a local program on Los Angeles radio stat ...
shows. In 2015 Salem Communications added both hosts to its line-up. By June 2015 KRLA's Los Angeles ratings pulled ahead of rival KABC. Salem Communications owns two other Talk Radio stations in Southern California, 590
KTIE, serving the
Inland Empire
The Inland Empire (IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County to the west. It includes the citie ...
(
Riverside County and
San Bernardino County
San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,181, ...
) and 1170
KCBQ serving
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
.
References
External links
FCC History Cards for KRLA
The "KRLA Beat" website, one of America's earliest rock-n-roll newspapers
{{coord, 34, 08, 13, N, 118, 13, 34, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title
Glendale, California
Radio stations established in 1942
RLA
News and talk radio stations in the United States
Salem Media Group properties