KTKT
 | |
| City | Tucson, Arizona |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Southern Arizona |
| Branding | La Buena 94.3 |
| Frequency | 990 kHz |
| Translator(s) | 94.3 K232FD (Tortolita) |
| First air date | 1948 (at 1490) |
| Format | Spanish Adult Hits |
| Power |
10,000 watts day 490 watts night |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 2744 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 32°15′19.00″N 111°0′32.00″W / 32.2552778°N 111.0088889°W |
| Former frequencies | 1490 kHz (1948-1956) |
| Owner |
Lotus Communications Corporation (Arizona Lotus Corp.) |
| Sister stations | KFMA-FM, KLPX-FM, KCMT-FM |
| Website | labuena943.com |
KTKT (990 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Spanish Adult Hits format. Licensed to Tucson, Arizona, United States, the station serves the Tucson area. The station is currently owned by Lotus Communications Corporation.[1] Its studios and transmitter are located separately in Northwest Tucson.
KTKT was once an English-language station that broadcast games of the Tucson Sidewinders and Tucson Toros minor league baseball teams.
History
At the end of the 1940s, KTKT began its broadcasting history at 1490 AM. The station was originally owned by Thomas J. Wallace, Sr., Tom Breneman, Sr., and Art Linkletter in 1948. (The two "T's" in KTKT were for the two Toms.)
After Mr. Brenemen’s untimely death Mr. Wallace came to Tucson from Los Angeles to run the station. Tom Wallace, Sr., who was KTKT's first licensee, had started his radio career in Chicago where he was Uncle Walter in the 1940s radio classic 'Uncle Walter's Dog House". He went on to produce other classic radio shows including ‘Blind Date’ with Arlene Francis, ‘Kukla, Fran, and Ollie” with Fran Allison, and The Red Skelton Show.
Because all the existing national radio networks were taken, KTKT became an independent, and its programming was mostly music. For a time, they were an affiliate of the short-lived Liberty Broadcasting System, formed around the play-by-play sportscasts of "The Old Scotsman", Gordon McLendon.
With the advent of television a few years later, KTKT was positioned to provide the growing music and news service which still characterizes radio. Wallace built his station on Elm, just west of Miracle Mile, in two war surplus military buildings which were moved onto the site. In the early 1950s, Chuck Blore (spelled Blower then) became one of Tucson's most popular personalities on KTKT, with his six-hour afternoon program, "Let's Play Records." Blore was a very creative radio personality, and went on to become one of radio's top programmers, starting Los Angeles' first "Top 40" station, the legendary KFWB in 1958. He later owned one of the top commercial production companies in Hollywood.
KTKT was doing well, but by 1956, Tom Wallace thought they could do better and, like KCNA which had moved from 1340 to 580 in 1951, reach more Southern Arizona listeners on a lower frequency. They filed to move to 990 kHz, with 10,000 watts of power and a directional antenna system, operating only from sunrise to sunset. Engineer Nat Talpis supervised construction of two towers, located off West Grant Road near Silverbell, where the KTKT/KLPX studios were located for many years. Within minutes after KTKT signed off 1490, a new station, KAIR signed on and continued playing the music which the audience was used to hearing. (In fact, KAIR had alleged that KTKT took too long to change frequencies.) Hal Peary, known to network radio audiences as the "Great Gildersleeve", was one of the KAIR owners, and he taped voice tracks for a daily program in Hollywood which was mailed to Tucson for broadcast.
On its new home at 990, KTKT was nicknamed "Color Channel 99"; soon after, Wallace formally transferred KTKT to the new Copper State Broadcasting Corporation, though it remained in the hands of the Wallace family. Tom Sr. was the boss, Tom Jr. handled all of the engineering challenges, and George did everything else. Soon, the Wallaces added Tucson's first FM station, KTKT-FM 99.5 (today's KIIM-FM). Tom Wallace put the FM station on the air because classical music was not being heard in Tucson, and he hired Jack Frakes, a drama teacher at Rincon High School, as his first announcer and classical music programmer.
In 1959 KTKT AM and the FM, which had changed its callsign to KFMM "FM on the Mountain" in anticipation of a move to Mt. Bigelow that was never made, combined on Sundays to demonstrate something new: stereophonic sound. The first stereo program in Tucson was on KTKT and KTKT-FM from 2 to 3 PM Sundays, played from the FM studio; the AM and FM stations broadcast separate audio channels.
To turn KTKT around, Wallace hired a young Frank Kalil to do the programming, and a legend was born. The energetic Kalil programmed the new "rock and roll" "Color Radio" "Top 40" style music and news format which quickly moved daytime-only KTKT into Tucson's number one spot, where it remained into the early 1980s. From 1956 to 1966, Frankie Kalil was considered the "voice" of Tucson radio.
In 1960, the Wallaces applied to begin operation at night with 1,000 watts, and late in the year, the family sold KTKT to the Leland Bisbee group; a new manager, Phil Richardson, took over, and financially the station began to prosper. The FM station was split off and purchased by KTUC's owner, Lee Little. The Leland Bisbee group sold KTKT to Lotus Communications Corporation in 1972.
In late 1985, Lotus opted to drop the live Top 40 format and carry the Transtar Adult Contemporary satellite feed from Los Angeles. In the spring of 1989, KTKT dropped music altogether and became an affiliate of CNN's Headline Radio News format. Eventually KTKT adopted the ESPN Deportes Spanish-language sports format.
References
- ↑ "KTKT Facility Record". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.