SLC Radio: KSL's Grant Nielsen Signs-Off

Amanda Dickson, Grant Nielsen

After almost 22 years of early morning radio, Grant Nielsen — one half of KSL Radio’s Grant & Amanda morning team — has left the show, leaving behind two decades of early mornings, early bedtimes, breaking news, topics du jour and banter with co-host Amanda Dickson.

According to The Deseret News, Nielsen signed off Friday on KSL 1160 AM / 102.7 FM for the last time, off to retirement at the age of 65.

Grant & Amanda have been a staple of the morning radio crowd for more than two decades. They have been together so long that for years people assumed they were married.

Grant, who grew up in Southern California but had family in Utah, came to Salt Lake City in 1993 to look for a job. He had been a disc jockey and music program director with stations in Salt Lake City (at KALL), Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. After losing his job in Seattle, he interviewed at FM100. After the interview, he walked across the street to the KSL offices simply to say hello to friends who worked there.

Rod Arquette, the program director at the time, told Grant that KSL had a morning opening and would he like to audition? Grant agreed, and Arquette went off to find someone to read with him during the audition. If Grant was an unlikely candidate for a job as a news/talk show host given his DJ background, Amanda was equally unlikely. She had been working weekends for 2½ years and believed she would never be considered for anything more. Arquette asked Dickson to serve as Grant’s audition partner, but the audition wasn’t for her. Arquette simply needed someone for Grant to play off of. But then something happened.

“It was like we were brother and sister from the moment we started the audition,” recalls Amanda. “We started cutting up and giving each other a hard time. I thought, who is this guy? It was magic and a wonderful feeling.”

When the audition was finished, a consultant who had been retained to help the station fill the morning program slot, told Arquette, “That’s your morning team right there.”