KSUR
KSUR was a commercial radio station licensed to Monterey, California. KSUR served the Monterey Bay and Santa Cruz area. The station was owned by Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters and broadcast an oldies radio format.
KSUR broadcast at 1,000 watts, using a directional antenna to protect other stations on 630 AM from interference. In addition, it broadcast on FM translator K294CA at 106.7 MHz.
History
In 1955, the station first signed on as KXXL. It was owned by Pacific Ventures, Inc. The station was later owned by Robert Sherry and his wife Julie Conway. Sherry owned and managed the station until Walton Broadcasting bought it in the mid-1970s. Sherry had been an NBC staff announcer in New York. Conway was an entertainer who had a million-selling record, "Jingle Jangle Jingle." Walton, owner of several stations in the Southwest, brought Claude D. Barnett to Monterey. Walton had to surrender the license of KIKX, Tucson, Arizona, to the FCC after his staff staged a phony kidnapping as a ratings stunt.For many years, KIDD offered an adult standards/MOR format, using the name "Magic 63". On April 7, 2009, the station shifted to an oldies playlist comprising a wide range of mid-1950s to 1970s pop songs. This was prompted by KOMY's dropping of the oldies format. The mornings were hosted by Kevin Kahl, who had been an on-air voice for "Magic 63". Weekend host Ed Dickinson's long-running "Way Back Now" music-nostalgia program survived the format change for two additional years before being canceled in late May 2011. At the time of its shutdown in 2014, the station was carrying the ESPN Radio Network.
Structural problems with the station's towers at Reservation Road and Seaside Court prompted owner Buckley Broadcasting to take KIDD silent on December 31, 2014. The towers, more than 50 years old and badly rusted, were dismantled. Buckley put the license up for sale. In April 2015, KIDD was purchased by Saul Levine's Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters, owner of Monterey station KBOQ and Los Angeles stations KKGO, KMZT, and KMZT-FM. Because the original tower site is now a protected wetlands, new towers could not be erected there. The sale of KIDD was consummated on July 31, 2015, at a purchase price of $50,000.
On October 23, 2015, KIDD returned to the air with a classical music format. It was operating under FCC special temporary authority at the KNRY tower, which is quite short for 630 kHz and nondirectional. At the previous site, KIDD was licensed with two directional patterns to protect 620 kHz in Hanford. It can't be permanently licensed as nondirectional.
In November 2019, Levine donated KIDD to The Balanced Radio Foundation, a nonprofit broadcasting company incorporated October 7 in Foresthill, California, but the donation was never consummated.
In April 2020, KIDD went silent. On November 12, 2021, Mount Wilson FM changed the station call sign to KSUR and returned to the air in December 2021 with an oldies format. On April 28, 2023, Mount Wilson FM surrendered KSUR's license, effective April 30.