KKLQ (100.3 FM, "Positive, Encouraging 100.3") is a non-commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States, and serves Greater Los Angeles. Owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF), KKLQ carries programming from the K-Love network with a transmitter sited atop Mount Wilson. The station's signal is extended by a booster in Santa Clarita, KKLQ-FM2 at 100.3 MHz, into the Santa Clarita Valley and other areas north of Los Angeles. Along with its translators, the station's signal is also extended to the Inland Empire by KKLP in Perris, along with KKLM (FM) in Murrieta. However both stations have their separate top of the hour IDs, mostly due to localization purposes.
From 2008 to 2017, the station broadcast a classic rock format (though it initially aired an adult album alternative format) under the brand 100.3 The Sound as KSWD. In 2017, station owner Entercom announced its merger with CBS Radio. In order to satisfy Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership caps, Entercom retained CBS Radio's pre-existing Los Angeles cluster but divested KSWD to EMF, who assumed control of the station on November 16, 2017, and flipped it to K-Love programming. The former broadcast studios of The Sound were located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles.
KKLQ is not affiliated with KLVE, a Spanish-language radio station which has used the name "K-Love" in the Los Angeles market continuously since 1974 and holds the trademark locally. Prior to assuming control of KKLQ, EMF reached an agreement with Univision Radio (now known as Uforia Audio Network), owner of KLVE, that allows KKLQ to use the K-Love brand on-air as part of networked content, but requires local promotion to disambiguate itself from KLVE.
History
Early years 100.3 FM in Los Angeles signed on as KMLA at 8a.m. on July 1, 1957. The station broadcast good music and news, with no more than two commercials per half-hour. (KMLA is now a Regional Mexican-formatted station in El Rio, California, serving the Oxnard-Ventura radio market.)
The KMLA Broadcasting Corporation, the original owner of the station, filed to sell it to KFOX, Inc., owner of KFOX (1280 AM) in Long Beach, in November 1964. (Guide to reading History Cards) The station changed its call letters to KVXN in January and again in April, after the sale was completed, to KFOX-FM, at which time it began simulcasting KFOX's country music format.
KIQQ In 1972, KFOX, Inc. traded its two Los Angeles stations and $3.45 million to the Industrial Broadcasting Company in exchange for KIKK AM and -FM in Pasadena, Texas, near Houston. Industrial then split the KFOX stations apart; the AM went to the John Walton group, while KFOX-FM was sold to Cosmic Communications. The new ownership changed the FM station's call letters to KIQQ ("K-100") in an attempt to capitalize on its frequency of 100.3 MHz. The following year, with the station's soft rock format failing to gain ratings or billing, KIQQ brought in deposed KHJ heavyweights Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, who contracted to program and manage the station. In spite of bringing in former KHJ powerhouse jocks, including Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele, certain management and programming decisions are believed to have led to the demise of Drake-Chenault's run at KIQQ. By 1975, Morgan and Steele were gone. Ultimately, the station cut costs drastically by airing a generic national format via satellite.
In the early 1980s, the station dropped its K-100 handle and kept to the calls as "KIQQ" with a live and local aggressive top-40 or contemporary hit radio (CHR) format. The on-air lineup included Jeff Thomas, G.W. McCoy (engaged to actress Heather Locklear for a time), and Francesca Cappucci. "Play Hits for Cash" was a regular promotion. KIQQ simulcast the NBC television show Friday Night Videos and even had Wally George as a weekend call-in host. KIQQ also carried American Top 40 beginning in 1983 after competing CHR station KIIS-FM lost the countdown program over the playing of network commercials; this move forced KIIS-FM to create its own chart show, Rick Dees Weekly Top 40.Durkee, Rob. American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century. . New York City: Schirmer Books, 1999. Accessed December 10, 2007.
By the mid-1980s, CHR competition from KIIS-FM, KKHR, and KBZT proved too intense for KIQQ; KIIS-FM alone had a 10 share in the Arbitron book. On July 29, 1985, KIQQ flipped to a satellite-delivered adult contemporary format as "100.3 K-Lite". The format lasted for four years before the launch of another new format.
The callsign KIQQ-FM is now on a regional Mexican music station in Newberry Springs, California.
KQLZ — Pirate Radio 100.3 FM In November 1988, Outlet Communications sold KIQQ to Westwood One for $56 million. The sale closed March 17, 1989, at midnight Pacific Time, and KIQQ officially signed off at 5a.m. after playing its final song, "(At) The End (Of A Rainbow)" by Earl Grant. The sign off announcement of KIQQ was read by Scott Shannon. KQLZ—branding as Pirate Radio—launched with the Guns N' Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle", adopting the title as its slogan. Pirate Radio broadcast with no commercial interruptions for its first few days, adding one or two advertisements per hour thereafter.
Pirate Radio started as a "Rock 40" station that played hard rock and heavy metal music mixed with upbeat pop music and some alternative rock in a manner similar to mainstream top 40 stations. At first, KQLZ featured an eclectic range of music and proudly proclaimed it played everything from Madonna to Metallica to Milli Vanilli. A typical hour of music on Pirate Radio in the spring of 1989 could include early crossover hip hop artist Tone Lōc, electronic music from Depeche Mode, a pop music ballad by Martika, a pop rock song by The Bangles, and satirical punk rock by the Dead Milkmen, all mixed with music from such rock acts as Iron Maiden, Billy Squier, and Winger.
The station was programmed by Scott Shannon, known within the radio business for his work at WHTZ (Z100) in New York City in the 1980s. Shannon left Z100 and moved to Los Angeles to compete against top-rated station KIIS-FM, as well as top 40 crossover outlet KPWR (Power 106). He developed the Pirate Radio concept while launching WHTZ, drawing inspiration from British pirate radio station Radio Caroline. A later account from WMMS program director John Gorman (both WHTZ and WMMS then, and now, are under common ownership) claimed that Shannon wanted to brand WHTZ as Pirate Radio when it launched, but was rebuffed by ownership who wanted WHTZ to be seen as a legitimate radio station; Z100 was his second choice. In addition to Shannon hosting KQLZ's morning drive program, other on-air personalities from the Rock 40 era included Shadow Steele in afternoon drive and Jimmy Page, formerly of KCAQ in Oxnard, in late nights. Westwood One paid Shannon a yearly salary of $2.3 million, then an industry high.
The original Pirate Radio billboards featured a close-up head shot of Shannon's face. Some of these billboards were soon defaced with "El Diablo" in spray paint. Local news media reported that some members of the area's Chicano, Hispanic, and Latino communities viewed Shannon's picture as a caricature of the devil. Some media sources reported that the acts of vandalism were done intentionally by the radio station to generate free publicity. In 1990, the station adopted as its mascot the "Party Pig", a cartoon pig wearing a trucker hat. This figure replaced Shannon's likeness on billboards and appeared on other promotional items such as T-shirts and bumper stickers.
One popular feature during KQLZ's first few months was "Flush and Win". The station invited listeners to call in and mention the Los Angeles-area radio station to which they listened before KQLZ signed on. After saying the competing station's moniker or call letters, the sound of a toilet flushing could be heard; this was meant to insinuate that the listener dumped one's former station and switched to Pirate Radio.
Along with its local 100.3 FM broadcast in Los Angeles, KQLZ could also be heard via satellite transmission (SatCom 1R, transponder 3, channels 5 and 6). This service was used primarily for the delivery of the syndicated program Pirate Radio U.S.A. to affiliates, but it also gave the station wide exposure outside of the local market. Employees of several radio stations around the country listened to and airchecked KQLZ's satellite signal. In 1989, Westwood One had planned to launch a 24-hour satellite version of Pirate Radio; however, a company representative stated that the debut of such a network was unlikely.
After briefly registering successful ratings during its first six months as Pirate Radio, KQLZ soon garnered ratings too low to bill advertising rates high enough to sustain operating costs. By late 1989, the station focused more on hard rock and heavy metal music (mostly metal in the more pop oriented glam metal genre), putting it in direct competition with metal station KNAC and album rock outlet KLOS. Shannon and most of the original on-air personalities were dismissed on February 13, 1991; the next day, the station switched to a conventional album rock format, dropping pop and dance music. The following month, Westwood One hired former KLOS program director Carey Curelop for the same position at KQLZ.
KQLZ dropped the Pirate Radio name on December 28, 1992 and adjusted its format to a hybrid of album rock and modern rock. The station from this point forward was known as simply 100.3 FM with the slogan "Southern California's Cutting Edge".
The Pirate Radio U.S.A. syndicated program, which Shadow Steele had hosted until 1991 and which was thereafter helmed by several others, ceased broadcasting in October 1993.
On April 1, 1994, as an April Fools' Day radio stunt, Los Angeles modern rock station KROQ-FM switched to KQLZ's "Rock 40" format, complete with original Pirate Radio bumpers, station legal IDs, airchecks, and playlists. Shadow Steele returned to the airwaves for the event, broadcasting live from the KROQ-FM studio.
In 2008, the KQLZ call letters were used for several years on a radio station in the Boise, Idaho, market that was an affiliate of the satellite-delivered True Oldies Channel, a later Scott Shannon project.
Since 2013, the KQLZ calls have been attached to a classic rock station serving Dickinson, North Dakota.
KXEZ — EZ 100.3 On March 29, 1993, Westwood One announced the sale of KQLZ to Viacom for $40 million, significantly less than what the company had purchased the station for in 1989; this marked the end of its brief stint in radio station ownership. Four days later, on April 2 at 3p.m., 100.3 FM flipped to soft adult contemporary with new call letters KXEZ, and adopted the EZ 100.3 branding. Shannon, on the phone from WPLJ in New York, returned to the station's airwaves briefly to give KQLZ a proper send-off, closing out the old format saying, "Goodbye, Pirate Radio".
It was a return to the dial for the KXEZ call letters and format, which had resided at 98.7 MHz until that station re-branded as KYSR, "Star 98.7", in 1992. It was during this period that the station hired prostitute Divine Brown to be their television spokesperson soon after her arrest with actor Hugh Grant.
Today, KXEZ is a classic country station near Dallas, Texas.
KIBB — B100