On This Date Mar 14 In Radio History

On This Day....

In 1922...KSD-AM, Saint Louis, Missouri, began broadcasting.

KSD-AM Original Studio, 1922

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch launched KSD in 1922, the first St. Louis station to obtain a broadcast license from the Department of Commerce, though WIL claims earlier operation as an amateur station.

KSD Transmitter 1922

According to route56.com, first as KSD, and now as KTRS, the station has been on 550 kHz since 1923, which probably gives it the longest record of occupancy on any one frequency of any United States radio station. With its 5000-watt signal and low frequency, KTRS actually has better daytime and nighttime coverage than 50,000-watt clear-channel station KMOX in much of Missouri.

Despite that great coverage, the Post-Dispatch let KSD slip in the 1970s and, on March 19, 1984, it even lost its historic call letters under Gannett ownership. After a short-lived all-news format, on which Gannett pulled the plug just as KSD was beginning to build an audience, KSD went to country and adopted the call letters KUSA. The call letters were restored by EZ Communications when it bought KSD-AM/FM in 1993.

The call letters were switched back to KSD on October 4, 1993.

Newspaper Ad 1936

Unfortunately, the station lost the call letters again when it was sold to the Dorsey Media Group of St. Louis. EZ's successor, American Radio Systems, retained the KSD call letters for use on KSD(FM), which is now owned by Clear Channel Communications.



In 1937...What was humorously billed as the "Battle of the Century" occurred when comedians Fred Allen & Jack Benny met on Radio.  This episode focuses on the feud between Benny and Fred Allen. After the discussion turns to which one could take the other in a fight, Jack, Mary and Rochester drive out to Andy Devine's farm so that Jack can train there.

The feud was fake, of course. Benny and Allen got along fine, and mllked the feud for laughs for many years.



In 1951...Radio Personality Rick Dees was born.

In 1991...Radio talk-show host (CKEY-Toronto, WNBC-New York, the NBC Radio Network's weekend program Monitor)/announcer/narrator Brad Crandall died of kidney failure at 63. He joined WNBC in 1964 and stayed for about six years.

In 2002... WTJM 105.1 FM NYC switched from classic soul to Hip Hop. Today, the call letters are WWPR.

In 2011…While reminiscing about his experiences of going to a record store and buying vinyl discs, singer Jon Bon Jovi criticized the co-founder of Apple for introducing iTunes, saying "Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business."