KRRL


KRRL – branded Real 92.3 – is a commercial urban contemporary radio station licensed to Los Angeles, serving much of the Greater Los Angeles area. Owned by iHeartMedia, KRRL serves as the flagship for Big Boy's Neighborhood. The KRRL studios are located in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, while the station transmitter resides on Mount Wilson. Besides a standard analog transmission, KRRL broadcasts over two HD Radio channels, and is available online via iHeartRadio.

History

KFAC-FM

The station first signed on the air on December 29, 1948, as KFAC-FM, the FM adjunct to KFAC. First owned by Errett Lobban Cord, a luxury vehicle manufacturer who purchased KFAC in 1931 from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, KFAC became one of the first commercially operated radio stations in the United States to adopt a full-time fine arts/classical music format, having gradually added long-form programming devoted to the genre between 1938 and 1945. The station's longest-running program, the six-night-a-week Gas Company Evening Concert, would enjoy a run on both KFAC—and later it and KFAC-FM—between October 1940 and September 1989. KFAC also slowly assembled an airstaff with unprecedented continuity and tenure, including, but not limited to: Thomas Cassidy, Fred Crane, Tom Dixon, Dick Crawford, Bill Carlson and Carl Princi, all six of which would be continuously employed by the station between 1953 and 1983.
At the time KFAC-FM was established, it generally simulcast KFAC's programming, but began to deviate from this to participate in a series of pseudo-stereo concert broadcasts with KFAC from the Hollywood Bowl Amphitheatre, starting in 1953. KFAC was fed the audio from a microphone pointed at one end of the Bowl, and KFAC-FM the audio from a microphone at the other end of the Bowl. Originally based at the transmitter site for KFAC in Los Angeles' Crenshaw district and operated at 104.3 MHz, the station moved to 92.3 MHz and the transmitter was moved to the top of Mount Wilson, both in July 1954, and was officially dedicated during a pseudo-stereo concert broadcast from the Bowl. Because KFAC-FM made this move to Mount Wilson prior to the FCC enacting limits for power output by FM stations in 1962, it is formally classified as a "Superpower" FM by operating at a maximum power level, but with the antenna being placed well above the height limit. These pseudo-stereo broadcasts were offered over both stations for 12 hours each week over the next decade, ending after KFAC-FM converted to a multiplexed signal in 1964.
E.L. Cord sold KFAC and KFAC-FM to Cleveland Broadcasting Incorporated, founded by Ray T. Miller for a combined $2 million. Miller founded WERE and WERE-FM in Cleveland, and also owned WLEC and WLEC-FM in Sandusky, Ohio, and pledged to maintain KFAC's classical format. After Miller's 1966 death, the company was sold two years later to Atlantic States Industries, a McGarven-Guild Radio subsidiary, for a combined $9 million. A waiver was requested to keep both KFAC and KFAC-FM under common ownership due to an interim policy proposed by the FCC which would have prohibited it; after a public on-air solicitation of support from listeners yielded 15,000 letters, the waiver was granted, and the deal was approved in October 1969.
KFAC and KFAC-FM ended their full-time simulcast on January 17, 1972; while both kept the same format and same airstaffs, KFAC-FM utilized a deeper playlist and broader spectrum of selections, while KFAC focused on more familiar selections and melodies, aiming to attract younger listeners. Both stations still simulcast core programming like Evening Concert, Luncheon at the Lincoln Center, and Continental Classics. The KFAC Listeners' Guild was established in 1970 supported by an annual $3 membership fee, providing listeners a chance to provide direct feedback to the station and its operations, it boasted over 11,000 members after the first year.
An ownership transfer in 1986 attracted controversy after most of the tenured airstaff was dismissed on December 31, 1986. When KFAC was sold to Lotus Communications as the new home of KWKW for $8.7 million on July 15, 1988, only five percent of KFAC and KFAC-FM's total audience listened to the AM frequency; the only deviation between both stations was the Brian Clewer-hosted Cynic's Choice that aired solely on KFAC. Days before that deal closed, on January 15, 1989, KFAC-FM was sold to Evergreen Media for $55 million, setting a record for the most expensive sale of a classical music outlet in the United States.
Despite Evergreen head Scott Ginsberg telling Radio & Records that KFAC-FM's format would remain in place, industry analysis warned a format change would occur because of the debt incurred in purchasing the station. Speculation began to accelerate when KFAC-FM dropped format in early July—for only a few minutes—to carry part of a Rolling Stones press conference, then Evergreen took responsibility for a cryptic billboard taken on Sunset Boulevard reading, "Pirate Radio, KLSX, KLOS: Get Ready to Move Over and Let the Big Dogs Eat!" Jim de Castro, who was appointed as KFAC's general manager from Evergreen's WLUP in Chicago, later admitted he won free use of that billboard for a month as the result of a golf bet. Finally, Evergreen announced the donation of KFAC and KFAC-FM's music library, with roots dating back to the early 1940s and appraised at $1.8 million, to KUSC; Stanford University and the Los Angeles Public Library acquired KFAC's compact disc library, the majority of titles KUSC already held. KUSC was also presented with a $35,000 check and the rights to the KFAC calls, those would later be placed on a KUSC repeater in Santa Barbara.
KFAC's demise attracted local and national attention, in part due to the longevity of the format and its presence in the nation's second largest radio market. A New York Times profile printed on the day of its format change labeled KFAC "a staple of Los Angeles's cultural life for 58 years" and that its switch was "a sign of the times and perhaps of things to come as American cultural tastes evolve." Competing radio stations KPFK and KCRW both aired tribute programming to KFAC, and Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters' KKGO-FM announced that it would switch formats to classical in January 1990, with KKGO-FM's existing jazz format moving to KKGO. KFAC's John Santana was hired by KKGO as a host, and revived the Gas Company Evening Concert the following March, with former KFAC announcer Tom Dixon as host. Meanwhile, Evergreen tried to capitalize on the attention the week of KFAC's switch by running television ads locally on L.A. Law, the 1989 MTV Movie Awards, and The Arsenio Hall Show teasing the "new" format.
An outdoor event was staged outside of KFAC's studios at noon on September 20, 1989, to commemorate the end of the classical format; this was simulcast on KUSC, which—along with KFSD in San Diego—had placed advertising promoting themselves on KFAC. The hour began with Jim de Castro ceremoniously "passing a baton" to KUSC general manager Wallace Smith, then after a partially improvised farewell message from Rich Capparela, the hour concluded with KFAC-FM's final classical selection: Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony. After a moment of silence led by de Castro, the air signal switched to a heartbeat sound effect, while television monitors outside the studios started playing the television ad proclaiming the new format, accompanied by a skywriter scripting in the skies above "It's Alive. FM-92", but all reporters in attendance wound up focusing on KFAC instead.

KKBT

The on-air heartbeat sound stunting would continue for the next 23 hours, interspersed with brief snippets of rock songs, ahead of the debut of KKBT the next day. Branded "The New FM 92 The Beat", the station offered a blend of adult rock, dance music, and adult contemporary. The first song under the new format was "Walk on the Wild Side" by Lou Reed. However, the format failed in the ratings; in the Winter 1990 ratings report for the market, KKBT was ranked 8th 12+, 10th in the 25-54 year-old age demographic, and 15th in overall cume. After less than five months, on February 3, 1990, the station switched to rhythmic adult contemporary, while maintaining the "FM 92 The Beat" branding. With the change, KKBT entered into direct format competition with KDAY, KJLH, KACE, and KGFJ, although KKBT focused more on soul music/rhythm and blues selections. While the station attracted criticism for its aggressive on-air tactics, KKBT's ratings rose significantly after the switch; by the summer of that year, it evolved to a strictly urban AC format. By 1991, rap and hip-hop were being mixed in, and the station evolved to an urban contemporary format as "92.3 The Beat".
As an urban contemporary station, KKBT hit #1 a few times in the ratings, and competed aggressively with a hip-hop station on the 105.9 frequency, KPWR. During its tenure as "The Beat", the station featured many popular and legendary DJs who came from stations like KPWR, KMEL, WQHT, KIIS-FM, and KDAY, like John London and The House Party, Diana Steele, Theodore "Theo" Mizuhara, Eric Cubiche, Nautica De La Cruz, P.J. Butta, NWA's founder Dr. Dre and the World Class Wreckin' Cru, Ronnie "Big Ron" O'Brien, Johnny "Big John" Monds, Kevin "Slow Jammin'" James, and Kevin Nash. Other shows included Westside Radio, a weekly radio program dedicated to West Coast Hip-Hop, and Street Soldiers, a weekly program dedicated to community issues and politics. The station went by the slogan "No Color Lines" based on the words to Janet Jackson's iconic 1989 smash hit and anthem entitled "Rhythm Nation", that slogan does proudly championing the diversity of the region. But it is also believed that KKBT was inspired by KMEL, KPWR, and KDAY. During the 1990s, the station held a summer concert known as "FM 92 The Beat's Summer Jam", which featured major Hip-hop and R&B stars who performed at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. In February 1996, sister station WYNY in New York City simulcasted KKBT for a day as part of a week-long stunt of simulcasting sister stations nationwide before changing formats to rhythmic adult contemporary as WKTU.
In a group deal in 1997, Evergreen merged with Chancellor. Chancellor acquired stations from other groups that exited the market. In 1999, Chancellor merged with Capstar and the company became AMFM, Incorporated.