KDTD


KDTD is a radio station broadcasting a Mexican Regional music format. Licensed to Kansas City, Kansas, United States and serving the Kansas City metropolitan area, the station is currently owned by Edward Reyes, through licensee Reyes Media Group, Inc. The station's studios are located on South 55th Street in Kansas City, Kansas; and its transmitter is located on Ann Avenue behind the Midway Shopping Center.

History

Establishment as WLBF

Entrepreneur and businessman Everett L. Dillard is the individual credited with putting the station on the air as WLBF. Dillard began broadcasting from his personal residence, with the original studio and transmitter being built at 32nd and Main streets in Kansas City, Missouri. The station moved across the river in 1928, when it began to occupy the 11th floor of the Elks Lodge Building in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. The building was last known as the Huron Building and was demolished in 1999. Like many early stations, WLBF moved around the dial in its early years; it started on 1420 kHz and relocated to 1430, where it broadcast with just 50 watts. In September 1928, it was allowed to move to 1200 kHz with 100 watts, only for a massive national radio reallocation to send the station back to 1420 on November 11.
Dillard went bankrupt in the Great Depression, and in 1930, the station was placed into receivership. That June, the station was sold to Alexander Maitland and Herbert Hollister, doing business as the WLBF Broadcasting Company.

KCKN

Sale to Arthur Capper

On November 13, 1935, the station was sold to Kansas U.S. Senator Arthur A. Capper who also owned the Kansas City Kansan daily newspaper. Capper's other related properties were the Topeka Daily Capital, the Topeka State Journal and WIBW, all in Topeka. Capper purchased the radio station to promote the Kansan and to give him a piece of the growing Greater Kansas City advertising market. When Capper acquired the property, it operated at 1420 kHz.
The Capper organization moved the station one block west into the offices of the Kansan at 901 North 8th Street. A new, self-supporting 186-foot box-tower was erected atop the three-story building. While the call letters were officially changed on October 20, 1936, it was not until Thanksgiving Day, November 26, that the station formally made the change to KCKN, which was derived from the letters in the name of the newspaper and the initials of its city of license, and another change, a relocation to 1310 kHz that was approved earlier in the year and reduced interference.
In 1939, KCKN was authorized to increase its power to 250 watts. It was on the air daily between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. The newspaper reported the station could be heard up to 300 miles away from Kansas City, Kansas, with the new broadcast equipment and a higher tower. In 1941, under the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, KCKN was moved to 1340 kHz, the frequency on which the station still remains.

KCKN became national news in the November 24, 1941, edition of Time magazine, after it broadcast a weeklong serial reading of journalist Clarence Streit's famous book, Union Now. Time referred to author Streit as a "level-headed zealot" for advocacy of the immediate federal union of the United States, England and other democratic states as a means of winning World War II. The consensus was that KCKN had broadcast the piece on orders from station owner and known isolationist Capper.

In 1944, KCKN became a basic Mutual Broadcasting System affiliate; it had also reestablished a physical presence in Kansas City, Missouri, with additional offices in the Waltower Building.

KCKN after World War II

Changing American tastes and lifestyles along with new technology changed radio in the wake of World War II. Principal among the threats to radio was the emergence of television. As radio moved from local programming and network shows to playing recorded music, some things stayed the same. Among the carryovers on KCKN after the war included sports announcer Larry Ray, who continued to provide play-by-play of the Kansas City Blues minor league baseball team; he later moved to WHB and KCMO, called Kansas City Athletics games on the radio, and became an insurance executive.
KCKN also sought to enter the world of television. In 1948, it filed to build a station on channel 2. After the four-year freeze and reallocation, KCKN applied again, this time for channel 5, in an application mutually exclusive with that of the KCMO Broadcasting Company. On June 3, 1953, the FCC dismissed the KCKN application, clearing the way for KCMO-TV to launch.
In the early 1950s, KCKN emerged as a dominant station in the Kansas City radio market. Wayne Stitt was the popular host in the mornings, Joe Farrell shared middays with Frank Hassett, and in the evening it was Eddie Clarke from 9 to 11pm. Joe Story was station manager, while George Stump was the program director. Print ahead of radio and television was in its infancy. "Prom Magazine" was a weekly publication targeted at the high school and college audience. The station advertised in every edition and coordinated contests on the air and with retail merchants through the magazine.
In 1954, however, Kansas City radio was in for a major shake-up. An innovative and well-financed entrepreneur, Todd Storz, came from Omaha and purchased WHB across the river in Kansas City, Missouri. He pioneered a new concept of pop radio, which would come to be known as Top 40. Storz would survey record sales at retail outlets to determine the top 40 songs being purchased each week and then release WHB's "Top 40 Survey" every Friday afternoon. The survey songs then comprised the station's playlist. Storz knew that to make the new concept successful, he needed to hire the market's highest-rated DJ talent, who would bring their listeners along with them to WHB. Storz raided KCKN, starting by hiring away Stitt and Clarke. The Storz programming at WHB was a huge success, and it led him to develop a chain of stations, all using the same Top 40 format.
The loss of talent at KCKN led to a rapid decline in every aspect of the radio station. Longtime announcer Buddy Black went to WGN in Chicago, while Stump went across the river to KCMO in Kansas City. Soward left for Topeka's WIBW in Topeka, and Bicknell remained in the Kansas City area at KMBC. KCKN was to spend the next few years drifting with little creative focus and a much smaller listening audience.

Cy Blumenthal and "countrypolitan" radio

Arthur Capper died in December 1951, and in 1956, his estate sold Capper Publications to Stauffer Publications. Stauffer immediately put KCKN up for sale. It was purchased in 1957 by a well-financed country music operator who had been successful in several smaller markets in Virginia. Cy Blumenthal relished the opportunity to take ownership of KCKN in the same market where Storz had so successfully transformed WHB with the Top 40 format. KCKN would remain a low-powered, 250-watt AM signal at 1340 kHz, but the station was still a valuable asset: it operated 24 hours a day, the signal was non-directional, and the call letters were a brand name in the market. Blumenthal flipped the station to a country format, competing against daytimer KIMO. After a year of success, changes in country music, notably competition from rock and roll, hurt the station, and KCKN tried Top 40. While it did fine, other Blumenthal stations, some of them daytimers, did not fare as well, and Blumenthal decided to flip his entire chain back to country music. At KCKN, this entailed luring away Ted Cramer, then the program director of KIMO; Blumenthal appointed Glen M. George as general manager, a post he would hold for the next 16 months. In order to help shed perceptions about country radio and move beyond the "really barefoot sound" at most country stations of the time, Cramer installed a country format with Top 40-esque presentation, called "countrypolitan" radio. Cramer then took a job in West Virginia, and native Kansas Citian Harry Becker returned from Texas in 1961 to become program director. Becker brought "Uncle Don" Rhea with him to work the vital morning drive shift. In 1962, Blumenthal received FCC permission to operate full-time at 1,000 watts. Cramer returned from West Virginia to become program director, and Becker took a midday air shift.
As part of the Stauffers' spinning off of KCKN, the station had to be relocated out of The Kansas City Kansan's offices. The station purchased a three-story, wood-frame farm house on the edge of town, at 4121 Minnesota Avenue, and converted it into studios and offices. A new, 150-foot guy-wired tower was constructed at the rear of the property. The large, open acreage, accessible by an asphalt road, was named "Radio Park".


The kinds of changes that Blumenthal had found successful in the smaller markets with the country audience were put into practice at KCKN. On-air voices were more professional and with a higher energy level than the hokey, down-home approach used in earlier years. The broadcast equipment was new and production values were high. The dee-jays were tight, with no dead air or long pauses. These changes got the positive results Blumenthal wanted; despite an increasingly competitive radio market, KCKN's listenership grew steadily.

In March 1962, Blumenthal received the construction permit for an FM station at 94.1 MHz, with an effective radiated power of 20,000 watts. The FM antenna was added near the top of the tower built in 1957, and on May 28, 1963, KCKN-FM signed on, carrying a simulcast of its AM sister 50 percent of the day while originating its own country music format for the remainder. It had an effective signal for approximately 50 miles and was non-directional.