KWDZ (910 AM) was a broadcast radio station licensed to

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...

, serving the

Salt Lake City metropolitan area The Salt Lake City metropolitan area is the metropolitan area centered on the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau currently define the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical ...

. The station was owned and operated by

iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a company founded by ...

. The KWDZ

broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which va ...

was held by Citicasters Licenses, Inc.

History

The station was founded in 1945, and originally held the callsign KALL. It was originally owned by Mr. and Mrs.

George C. Hatch George C. Hatch (December 16, 1919, in Erie, Pennsylvania – August 30, 2009, in Salt Lake City, Utah) was an American businessman who owned several communications businesses and helped pioneer cable television. He was a founder of Western M ...

and Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Hinkley. In 1946, John F. Fitzpatrick, publisher of ''

The Salt Lake Tribune ''The Salt Lake Tribune'' is a newspaper published in the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The ''Tribune'' is owned by The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The newspaper's motto is "Utah's Independent Voice Since 1871." History ...

'' (owned by the Kearns Corporation), representing the Tribune, purchased fifty percent interest in the station from the owners. The Tribune's interest (Kearns-Tribune, Corp.) sold its interest in 1954, to permit its owner (Kearns-Tribune, Corp.) to apply for a license to buy a television license and to purchase a fifty percent ownership in

KUTV KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14) and St. George, Utah, St. George–licensed MyNetwor ...

Channel 2. KALL had long aired a full service format. In the early 1990s, the station began airing a

news/talk 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. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, interviews ...

format, carrying programming such as '' The Rush Limbaugh Show'' and '' The G. Gordon Liddy Show''. The station's ownership changed several times during the 1990s;Sale splits KALL radio between 2 new owners - Deseret News
/ref> in 1992, Communications Investment Corp. sold the station to Apollo Radio Partners, owner of KKAT, ending George C. Hatch's ownership of KALL. Apollo Radio sold its stations to Regent Communications in 1995; Regent, in turn, sold its stations to Jacor in 1997. Jacor merged with

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a company founded by ...

in 1999. On March 6, 2000, the station's format was adjusted when its sister station KNRS adopted a talk radio format, and the station adopted the slogan "talk radio with an attitude", carrying hosts such as Jim Bohannon and Phil Hendrie. Clear Channel sold KALL to Mercury Broadcasting Company after its 2001 acquisition of

KTVX KTVX (channel 4) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Ogden-licensed KUCW (channel 30), an owned-and-operated station of The CW. The two stations sh ...

brought them over ownership limits; it continued to sell advertising on the station under a joint sales agreement. In 2003, Disney/ABC purchased the station for $3,700,000, while the intellectual property and callsign was purchased by Clear Channel Communications for $2,000,000.Lynn Arave,
Radio dial: A Utah radio first: separate deals on content, frequency
, ''

Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is a multi-platform newspaper based in Salt Lake City, published by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS ...

'', February 28, 2003. Retrieved August 20, 2015 Disney/ABC bought the station to clear its

Radio Disney Radio Disney was an American radio network operated by the Disney Radio Networks unit of Disney Branded Television within Disney General Entertainment Content, headquartered in Burbank, California. The network broadcast music programming ...

network, which was about to be dropped by previous affiliate KBEE. Clear Channel moved KALL's talk programming and the KALL callsign to 700 kHz, and on April 30, 2003, the station changed its call sign to KWDZ. In June 2013, Disney put KWDZ and six other Radio Disney stations in medium markets up for sale, to refocus the network's broadcast distribution on top-25 markets. On August 17, 2013, KWDZ dropped the Radio Disney affiliation and went silent. After almost one year, KWDZ resumed operations on August 14, 2014. Initially broadcasting locally originated automated programming upon its return to the air, Radio Disney programming returned sometime around late September 2014. By that time, Disney had announced plans to sell all but

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

of Radio Disney's remaining 23 owned-and-operated stations. Originally planning to sign-off the stations on September 26, 2014, Disney later decided to keep the stations on the air until they were sold. On May 29, 2015, Radio Disney Group filed an application to sell KWDZ to the Citicasters Licenses, Inc. subsidiary of

(the former Clear Channel Communications). iHeart bought KWDZ (and WRDZ-FM) for $1.95 million. The sale was approved by the FCC on July 14, 2015. The sale was completed on July 17, 2015, and the station went silent again. Following temporary operations in May 2016 and April 2017, iHeartMedia surrendered the KWDZ license on April 25, 2018; the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

cancelled it on June 26, 2018.

References

External links

Facility details for Facility ID 2445 (KWDZ)
in the FCC Licensing and Management System
FCC History Cards for KWDZ
(covering 1944-1980 as KALL) {{IHeartMedia 1945 establishments in Utah 2018 disestablishments in Utah WDZ Defunct radio stations in the United States IHeartMedia radio stations Mass media in Salt Lake City Radio stations disestablished in 2018 Radio stations established in 1945 WDZ