KDIZ (1570 kHz "Freedom 1570") is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Golden Valley, Minnesota, and serving the Twin Cities radio market. The station is owned by the Salem Media Group and broadcasts a conservative talk radio format. KDIZ's radio studios are on Cliff Road near Minnesota State Highway 77 in Eagan.
By day, KDIZ is powered at 4,000 watts. But because 1570 AM is a Mexican clear channel frequency, KDIZ reduces power at night to 220 watts to avoid interference. The signal is non-directional at all times. The transmitter is on Lilac Drive North in Golden Valley, near Minnesota State Highway 100.
Programming
Salem Media owns two talk stations in the Twin Cities: WWTC 1280 AM carries mostly programs from the co-owned Salem Radio Network. Meanwhile KDIZ carries nationally syndicated hosts from Westwood One (Ben Shapiro, Chris Plante and Mark Levin) and CBS Radio (Dana Loesch) as well as some Salem hosts (Charlie Kirk, Jay Sekulow and Eric Metaxas).
KDIZ also carries St. John's University college football games. Most hours begin with Townhall News, similar to WWTC.
History
KUXL
The station signed on the air on . The original call sign was KUXL and it had a long history of being a Christian radio station. In the 1960s and 1970s, KUXL played urban gospel and R&B music, among other programming, prior to becoming full-time religious.
For much of its history, the station was a daytimer, required to go off the air at night because it broadcast on a Mexican clear channel frequency. Its studios and offices were originally located at 4820 Olson Highway in Golden Valley. The operations later moved to Duluth Street. The transmitter and antenna were first co-located with KQRS (AM) on Highway 100 and later on the station's own tower a block away from the Duluth Street studios, next to Highway 100.
In the mid-1960s, the station was operated by Marvin Kosofsky. Kosofsky hired Bob Smith (a.k.a. Wolfman Jack), who relocated from Del Rio, Texas, to run the station with a mostly R&B format. Also at KUXL at this time were Art Hoehn (a.k.a. Fat Daddy Washington) and former KDWB personality Ralph Hull (a.k.a. Preacher Paul Anthony and The Nazz). It was this trio of broadcasters who took control of "border blaster" station XERB 1090, in Baja California, in 1965. They operated the "Big X" from Minneapolis initially, then relocated to Southern California in 1966.
KUXL sponsored numerous concerts by such artists as Ike and Tina Turner, the Four Tops, BB King, Solomon Burke, the Temptations, Jimmy Reed, Jr. Walker, the Impressions and Fats Domino.
KUXL was a ratings success in the early 1970s. Some of the on-the-air talent from that era included Maury Bernstein, a noted musicologist/folklorist who later hosted for National Public Radio. Bernstein was the major authority on Scandinavian music in the U.S. Bob Allard was famed Twin Cities talk show host and television (KMSP) newscaster. Allard was one of the best-known voices in Twin Cities broadcasting history. Allard was known for portraying the character "Cactus Jim" on both radio and television in Iowa in the 1950s. Chris Robbins, also known as John Ryan, also worked for WTCN-TV. Brian Tolzmann was the youngest major market news director in the country at the time. He later hosted a nationally syndicated radio show, and worked with former KUXL manager Wolfman Jack on several national concert shows. Steve Blitz and talk show hosts Joe Barbeau and Jim King were also part of the staff.
KYCR
The call letters changed to KYCR in May 1988.
KYCR was in 1994 purchased by Children's Broadcasting Corporation, parent of the Radio Aahs children's format, becoming a sister to Aahs flagship station WWTC (1280 AM). KYCR retained its religious format as studios were co-located with WWTC at Excelsior Boulevard and Highway 100 in St. Louis Park. In 1995, the transmitter was moved a few miles south of its longtime tower to WWTC's 4-tower transmission facility in St. Louis Park, west of Highway 100 and south of I-394.