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The MOVE Fire

This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985 Philadelphia police fired thousands of rounds at the MOVE house, city officials approved dropping an explosive device on the roof, the resulting fire was allowed to burn, 11 people—including five children—died, and 61 homes were destroyed. Philadelphia City Council later called it a “brutal attack carried out by the City of Philadelphia on its own citizens” and acknowledged that no individual faced criminal consequences for the bombing. One timeline correction worth preserving for the BHP record: the major previous MOVE-police confrontation was August 8, 1978, about seven years before the bombing, not a year or two earlier. Officer James Ramp was killed, other police and firefighters were wounded, nine MOVE members were later convicted, and television cameras recorded police beating Delbert Africa during his arrest. The 1985 MOVE Commission later specifically criticized city planners for failing to adequately use lessons from that 1978 confrontation. And that actually strengthens the point you’re making: 1985 did not happen without precedent or institutional memory. There had already been a deadly confrontation with MOVE, years of conflict, negotiations and police involvement before Osage Avenue.

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BLACK FACTS
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Wilmington 1898 — An American Coup

Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.

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Wikipedia

KYWW

KYWW
Broadcast area
Rio Grande Valley
Frequency1530 kHz
BrandingPuro Tejano 1530 AM
Programming
LanguageSpanish
FormatTejano music
AffiliationsTUDN Radio
Ownership
Owner
  • Latino Media Network
  • (Latino Media Network, LLC)
History
First air date
  • August 20, 1941; 85 years ago (1941-08-20) (as KGBS on 1240 kHz)
  • December 1, 1951 (as KSOX on 1530 kHz)
  • September 1, 1953 (as KGBS on 1530 kHz)
Former call signs
  • KCUE (CP)
  • KSOX (1951–1953)
  • KGBS (October 7–December 31, 1953)
  • KGBT (1954–2025)
Former frequencies
1240 kHz (1941–1953)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
67067
ClassB
Power
Links
Public license information

KYWW (1530 kHz, "Puro Tejano 1530 AM") is a Spanish language AM radio station, licensed to Harlingen, Texas, United States, and serving the Rio Grande Valley border area. It is owned by Latino Media Network, and airs a Spanish language Tejano music format.

By day, KYWW is powered at 50,000 watts non-directional, the maximum for American commercial AM radio stations. Because 1530 AM is a clear channel frequency reserved for KFBK in Sacramento and WCKY in Cincinnati, KYWW reduces power at night to 10,000 watts to avoid interference. After sunset and during critical hours, it uses a directional antenna with a six-tower array. The transmitter is on Route 491 in Stockholm, Texas.[2]

History

[edit]

Early years of KGBS and KSOX

[edit]

In 1941, McHenry Tichenor, former publisher of the Valley Morning Star newspaper, broke ground on a new radio station at a site known as Harbenito, between Harlingen and San Benito.[3] The "Harbenito station", KGBS on 1240 kHz, signed on the air at dawn on August 20, 1941.[4] It was the third radio station in the Valley.[5] The station obtained a CBS radio affiliation in 1943, just two years after signing on.[6]

Meanwhile, after several years of protests from the 1530 AM station in Cincinnati, the FCC approved the application of Roy Hofheinz to build a new station in Harlingen. The city would become the smallest in the country to host a 50,000-watt radio station,[7] which finally went on air on December 1, 1951.[8] KSOX was a Mutual Broadcasting System affiliate. Three thousand residents attended the station's open house to see a modern studio facility, a scaled-down version of his KTHT in Houston.[9]

KGBS moves to 1530 and becomes KGBT

[edit]

Two years later, effective September 1, 1953, KGBS bought the KSOX facilities and moved its programming and call sign there, including its CBS affiliation.[10] (The 1240 license was surrendered;[11] the frequency was revived in 1957 using the KSOX call sign.) The Harbenito facilities were converted to television station KGBS-TV, which launched on October 4.[10] On New Year's Day 1954, KGBS became KGBT, matching the TV station, which changed its call letters on December 9, 1953. The Tichenor group in the Valley was completed with KELT FM 96.9.

Into the 1960s, KGBT became a highly successful station in the market, particularly once it flipped to Spanish-language programming. In 1967, it commanded more than a 60 percent share of local radio listening just on the United States side of the border.[12] In 1991, it still rated third in the market despite being on AM.[13]

Univision ownership

[edit]

The Tichenor family's media holdings, later renamed the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation, were acquired by Univision Communications in 2003 in a $3 billion merger, ending 62 years of Tichenor ownership of KGBS/KGBT.[14]

KGBT was affiliated with the Univision America network from 2012 until its demise in mid-2015, when KGBT and several other former Univision America stations changed to a Spanish Christian format known as "Amor Celestial".[15]

On December 20, 2016, Univision announced that KGBT would be one of the charter affiliates of their new Spanish-language sports network, Univision Deportes Radio; the launch occurred in March 2017.[15] The network became known as TUDN Radio in 2019.

Latino Media Network sale

[edit]

On June 3, 2022, Univision announced it would sell a package of 18 radio stations across 10 of its markets, primarily AM outlets in large cities (including KGBT) and entire clusters in smaller markets such as McAllen, Texas, Fresno, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada. The price tag was $60 million, and the owner would be a new company known as Latino Media Network (LMN). Univision proposed to handle operations for a year under agreement before turning over operational control to LMN in the fourth quarter of 2023.[16] The sale was consummated on December 30, 2022. In the spring of 2023, TelevisaUnivision turned over operational control to Latino Media Network for the three stations (including KGBT), making the McAllen market the first market in which LMN took full operational control.

On March 11, 2025, Latino Media Network changed KGBT's call sign to KYWW.[17]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KYWW". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Radio-Locator.com/KYWW
  3. ^ "New Radio Station". Brownsville Herald. April 25, 1941. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  4. ^ "KGBS Begins Broadcasting". Brownsville Herald. August 20, 1941. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  5. ^ "New Valley Radio Station Opens". The Monitor. August 20, 1941. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  6. ^ "Columbia Network Programs Signed Up By KGBS Now: Harlingen Station To Go On Chain". Brownsville Herald. August 18, 1943. p. 1. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  7. ^ "New Harlingen Radio Station To Be In Operation March 1". Brownsville Herald. January 14, 1951. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  8. ^ "KSOX To Go On Air Saturday". Valley Morning Star. November 25, 1951. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  9. ^ "Hofheinz Opens Swank Studios Of Radio KSOX". Valley Morning Star. December 2, 1951. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  10. ^ a b "Harlingen TV Set for Oct. 4". Valley Morning Star. September 20, 1953. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  11. ^ "Hofheinz To Sell Harlingen Station". Austin American-Statesman. Associated Press. August 14, 1953. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  12. ^ "How FIRST Can You Get?". Brownsville Herald. October 4, 1967. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  13. ^ Seale, Avrel (July 28, 1991). "Ratings reveal the shifting sands of Valley radio". The Monitor. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  14. ^ Rutenberg, Jim (June 13, 2002). "Univision Buys Big Holder of Hispanic Radio Stations". Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  15. ^ a b Venta, Lance (December 19, 2016). "Univision To Launch "Univision Deportes Radio"". RadioInsight. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  16. ^ Venta, Lance (June 3, 2022). "Latino Media Network To Acquire Univision Radio Properties in Ten Markets". Archived from the original on June 6, 2022. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
  17. ^ Cuprys, Aleksandra (March 5, 2025). "Form 380 - Change Request". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved March 11, 2025.
[edit]

26°22′34.3″N 97°53′44″W / 26.376194°N 97.89556°W / 26.376194; -97.89556

Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.

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Wikipedia

KYWW

KYWW (1530 kHz, "Puro Tejano 1530 AM") is a Spanish language AM radio station, licensed to Harlingen, Texas, United States, and serving the Rio Grande Valley border area. It is owned by Latino Media Network, and airs a Spanish language Tejano music format. By day, KYWW is powered at 50,000 watts non-directional, the maximum for American commercial AM radio stations. Because 1530 AM is a clear channel frequency reserved for KFBK in Sacramento and WCKY in Cincinnati, KYWW reduces power at night to 10,000 watts to avoid interference. After sunset and during critical hours, it uses a directional antenna with a six-tower array. The transmitter is on Route 491 in Stockholm, Texas.

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Wikipedia

KGBT

KGBT may refer to: KGBT-FM, a radio station (98.5 FM) licensed to McAllen, Texas, United States KGBT-TV, a television station (channel 4 virtual/18 digital) licensed to Harlingen, Texas, United States KYWW, a radio station (1530 AM) licensed to Harlingen, Texas, United States, which held the call sign KGBT from 1954 to 2025

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Wikipedia

Hidalgo County, Texas

Hidalgo County (hee-DAHL-goh ; Spanish pronunciation: [iˈðalɣo]) is a southern county in the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat is Edinburg, and the largest city in the county is McAllen. As of the 2025 census estimate, its population was 921,549, making it the ninth-most populous county in Texas, and the most populous county outside of the counties in the Texas Triangle. However, based on housing permits and service usage, county officials believe the true population is around 1.2 million, if "a full and accurate census count is completed." The county is named for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the priest who raised the call for Mexico's independence from Spain. It is located in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and is one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. Hidalgo County is designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission metropolitan statistical area, which itself is part of the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission-Rio Grande City, Texas combined statistical area with neighboring Starr County. With a population that is 91.9% Hispanic as of 2020, it is Texas' second-most populous majority-Hispanic county and the fifth-largest nationwide. It is also the largest county which is over 90% Hispanic. It is also the southernmost landlocked county in the United States, and in 2021, it was the largest county in the nation with a total fertility rate above the replacement level (at 2.13).

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Wikipedia

Lower Rio Grande Valley

The Lower Rio Grande Valley , often referred to as the [Rio Grande] Valley (RGV) of South Texas, is a metropolitan region located in the southernmost part of Texas. The Rio Grande Valley is not a true valley, but a river delta and floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. It consists of the Brownsville-Harlingen and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan areas, and the Rio Grande City-Roma and Raymondville micropolitan areas. Cameron County, Texas is home to the SpaceX Starbase spaceport, situated in Boca Chica; it is also the residence of Elon Musk.

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TOPIC OF THE DAY

Greenwood / Black Wall Street

Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.

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TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE DAY

Which Supreme Court case ruled state-sponsored public-school segregation unconstitutional?

Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.