KTRS (550 kHz) is a commercial 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 radi ...

in St. Louis, Missouri. The station airs 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 ...

with some

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

. The station is owned by KTRS-AM License, L.L.C., a consortium of local investors which includes actor and St. Louis native

John Goodman John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He gained national fame for his role as the family patriarch Dan Conner in the ABC comedy series '' Roseanne'' (1988–1997; 2018), for which he received a Golden Globe Award, a ...

. KTRS's

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, ...

s and offices are located in Westport Plaza in Maryland Heights. KTRS broadcasts with 5,000

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 Wa ...

s of power, day and night. It uses a directional antenna at night to avoid interfering with other stations on AM 550. 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 ...

is located near

Gateway Motorsports Park World Wide Technology Raceway (formerly Gateway International Raceway and Gateway Motorsports Park) is a motorsport racing facility in Madison, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri, United States, close to the Gateway Arch. It features a o ...

Madison, Illinois Madison is a city in Madison and St. Clair counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 3,891 at the 2010 census. It is home to World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway and the first Bulgarian Orthodox church in the United States. ...

. KTRS can also be heard in St. Louis and its adjacent suburbs on 250-watt

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tra ...

K291CW at 106.1 MHz.

Programming

On weekdays, KTRS airs local shows during the day and evenings. "Farmer Dave" Schumacher has an agricultural show, followed by McGraw Milhaven and Kelly Jackson in morning drive time, Jennifer Blome and Wendy Wiese in late mornings, John Carney and Julie Buck in early afternoons, Heidi Glaus and Josh Gilbert in afternoon drive time, ''The Big Sports Show'' with Brendan Weise in the early evening followed by Ray Hartmann at night. Two

syndicated Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...

shows are heard: ''The Jim Bohannon Show'' overnight and '' First Light'' airs before sunrise. Weekend programming includes shows on money, health, the outdoors, veterans, golf, movies and pets, with occasional sports events. Most hours begin with world and national news from

ABC News Radio ABC News Radio is the news radio service of ABC Audio, a division of ABC News in the United States. Formerly known as ABC Radio News, ABC News Radio feeds, through Skyview Networks, five minute newscasts on the hour and news briefs at half- ...

Sports

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded ...

Tigers football and men's basketball, ''Tiger Talk'', and ''Tiger Update''. * Memphis Redbirds minor league baseball * Missouri Turkey Day Game (

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...

) and Show-Me Bowl state championships (in years when the game is held in the St. Louis area) in

high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, partl ...

History

Early years

The station was originally owned by the '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch'', beginning experimental broadcasts in 1921 at 833 kilocycles with 27 watts of power. The official

sign-on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio station, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonwealth ...

took place on . The original

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assig ...

was KSD, standing for Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. KSD moved to 550 AM in 1923. Power was increased to 5,000 watts daytime and 1,000 watts nighttime in 1934. With a new transmitter in place, in November 1948 KSD increased its night output to match its daytime output, 5,000 watts.

NBC radio and television

KSD was one of the first eight radio stations of the NBC Red Network in 1926. KSD carried NBC's schedule of dramas, comedies, news, sports,

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...

s and

big band 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 ...

broadcasts during the "

Golden Age of Radio The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the earl ...

." The NBC

network affiliation In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or al ...

lasted until the early 1980s. Sister station KSD-TV (now KSDK) went on the air February 8, 1947. Because of KSD Radio's long affiliation with NBC, the TV station also began broadcasting NBC shows. In 1980, the owners of KSD acquired FM station KCFM. The call sign was changed to KSD-FM, since those call letters were well known in the St. Louis radio market. In 1983, the AM station gave up the heritage call sign; the call letters continue on KSD-FM, now owned by iHeartMedia, Inc.

MOR, Top 40, News, Country

As network programming passed from radio to television, KSD switched to a

full service Full service or Full Service may refer to: * Full-service radio, a wide range of programming * Full Service Network, a communications company Entertainment * "Full Service", a song by the New Kids on the Block from their album ''The Block'' * Fu ...

, middle of the road format, playing popular adult music, with news, talk and sports shows. Then as

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 "conte ...

radio became more popular, KSD switched to a contemporary hits format in early 1971. As Top 40 listening shifted from AM to FM radio, KSD began an all-news radio format in early 1980. KSD flipped to

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, o ...

the following year, and in 1983, KSD became KUSA. March 17, 1993 saw the restoration of the KSD

and a switch back to all-news, this time utilizing the full-time CNN Headline News network feed. The station flipped to adult standards in January 1995.

Talk radio

On April 15, 1996, the station became KTRS and switched to its current

Talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...

format. The station was purchased by its current owners, CH Radio Holdings, in 1997. KUSA started AM stereo broadcasts in 1983 after rebuilding most of the transmitter to accommodate stereo transmissions. Stereo broadcasts continued throughout most of the 1990s, using the C-QUAM standard. In 1997, KTRS stopped sending stereo programming to the transmitter but continued broadcasting the stereo pilot signal. In 2001, the stereo pilot was silenced.

Air personalities

KTRS Morning Show hosts

Bill Wilkerson Bill Wilkerson (1945 – November 2, 2017) was an American radio personality and sports announcer who enjoyed a long career on St. Louis stations KMOX (1969–1996) and KTRS (1996–2006). Early life Wilkerson was born and raised in St. Lo ...

and Wendy Wiese, sports director Jim Holder (at the time the public address announcer at the Edward Jones Dome for the NFL Rams' games), Randy Karraker, McGraw Milhaven, Kevin Horrigan, Scott St. James and Meme Wolff were all fired. Management, including program director Al Brady Law, announced plans to bring in a new lineup beginning in January 2006. Milhaven, however, was reinstated during the spring of 2006. Law was fired on December 11 of that year. Wendy Wiese also returned to the station. KTRS announced on October 6, 2010, that it had hired veteran St. Louis radio personality J.C. Corcoran to fill its weekday midday slot starting October 25, 2010. Corcoran was fired on April 27, 2012, and later joined 1380 KXFN. Trish Gazall, who had been John Brown's co-host, joined Corcoran in January 2011 as his producer; Trish Gazall left the station in October 2012 for KEZK-FM. Steve Cochran, who later worked at WGN in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, hosted a weekday evening talk show on KTRS from 2010 until 2013.

Sports franchises

KTRS broadcast St. Louis Blues hockey games from 2000 to 2006. In 2006, the Blues moved to competitor KMOX. After five years (2006–10), KTRS sold the rights to St. Louis Cardinals

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

games to KMOX starting in 2011.Cardinals returned to KMOX in 2011 season and on
(Sept. 1, 2010) (The Cardinals nonetheless retained their ownership stake in KTRS and still airs the games of its owned-and-operated farm club, the Memphis Redbirds.) With the elimination of the Cardinals, KTRS now airs the

Tigers football and men's basketball as well as their weekly sports show, along with occasional

contests.

Storm damage

In July 2006, severe storms knocked over two of the four transmitting towers. The towers were replaced in 2009. A second storm in 2018 knocked over the #4 tower, which required replacement.

References

External links

*
FCC History Cards for KTRS
{{News/Talk Radio Stations in Missouri TRS (AM) Sports in St. Louis News and talk radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1922 NBC Radio Network affiliates 1922 establishments in Missouri Radio stations licensed before 1923 and still broadcasting