KPLM-FM
Encyclopedia
KPLM is one of four Class B FM radio stations serving the Palm Springs, California
, area and one of only two 50 kW stations. The others are 1960s and 1970s oldies
-formatted 42 kW KDES
Palm Springs at 104.7 MHz; contemporary album-oriented rock
-formatted 26.5 kW KCLB Coachella
at 93.7 MHz and beautiful music
50 kW KWXY-FM
Cathedral City
at 98.5 MHz. KPLM broadcasts at 106.1 MHz.
The station then called KPAL was founded in 1974 by Los Angeles radio personality Magnificent Montague
, whose trademark shout, "Burn!" was expanded to "Burn, baby, burn" during the 1965 Watts riots
. The construction permit for the station was the first issued to an African-American in four decades. Call sign
"KPLM" became available in 1979 when a local television station was purchased by Esquire magazine. Today, that same TV station retains the call letters of KESQ-TV
although Esquire no longer owns it.
KPLM was an easy listening
station through the first years of its existence. By the early 1980s, Montague sold his interest in the station which soon featured legendary Los Angeles radio personality Al Lohman
in the weekday morning drive slot. A change was made to a contemporary country music
format on January 5, 1994 giving KPLM an exclusive audience; no other FM country music station was on the air in the area at that time. After signing off the old format with "What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong
, the new format's first three songs were "Don't Rock the Jukebox" by Alan Jackson
, "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks
and "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus
.
1996 saw new parent company RM Broadcasting expand its market share with the acquisition of financially troubled, Palm Desert-based KLCX, only on the air for a brief time at 102.3 MHz under a classic rock
format. KLCX was immediately reformatted into KJJZ
, a pioneering smooth jazz
radio station under the program direction of Jim "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a major smooth jazz concert promoter from New York who has been in the morning drive slot since the station's inception. Studios for both stations are in the same Palm Springs location.
A third station, KAJR-FM
at 95.9 MHz took to the air as a fully automated Jack FM
affiliate beginning in August 2007.
KPLM has the distinction of covering a greater terrestrial area than any other Palm Springs station coupled with a worldwide audience via the internet as of November 30, 2006. KPLM's transmitter is on a mountain along the edge of Joshua Tree National Park
. As a result, the station not only blankets the Coachella Valley
but reaches northward to the Mojave Desert
, southward to Imperial County and northern Baja California
and westward via two repeaters to the San Gorgonio Pass
cities of Banning
, Temecula
and Hemet
. The first is located on Snow Peak above Banning; the second is within the city of Hemet.
The station also plays an active role in bringing major country acts to the area; indeed, the station is the most active of all Palm Springs stations in sponsoring major concerts. Concerts in 2007 included Vince Gill
with wife Amy Grant
, Trisha Yearwood
and Reba McEntire
. Superstar duo Montgomery Gentry
concluded the 2007 calendar in October at the Spa Resort Casino in downtown Palm Springs. 2008 concluded with Wynonna Judd
who appeared for a holiday concert at the McCallum Theatre
in December; 2009 began with Josh Turner
at the McCallum and Brooks & Dunn
at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, both in February.
Other key on-air personnel include news director Jeff Michaels, production manager and nighttime talent Nick Summers, promotions manager Kory James and program director
Al Gordon.
As previously mentioned, both KPLM and KJJZ stream in real time via the internet. Both dial-up and broadband connections are supported and the KPLM stream is immediately accessible via the website listed to the right.
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
, area and one of only two 50 kW stations. The others are 1960s and 1970s oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
-formatted 42 kW KDES
KDES
KDES-FM 98.5 is an oldies and 1960s–1970s rock station in the Palm Springs area and the Coachella Valley of Southern California. It is owned by R&R Broadcasting, also the owner of KPSI AM 920, KPSI-FM 100.5, KPTR AM 1450 and KWXY AM 1340....
Palm Springs at 104.7 MHz; contemporary album-oriented rock
Album-oriented rock
Album-oriented rock is an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists.-Music played:Most radio formats are based on a select, tight rotation of hit singles...
-formatted 26.5 kW KCLB Coachella
Coachella, California
Coachella is a city in Riverside County, California; it is the easternmost city in the region collectively known as the Coachella Valley...
at 93.7 MHz and beautiful music
Beautiful music
Beautiful music is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in American radio from the 1960s through the 1980s...
50 kW KWXY-FM
KWXY-FM
KWXY ia a Class C commercial AM radio station licensed to Cathedral City, California, USA. The station was founded in 1964 on 1340 AM and had broadcast on 98.5 MHz FM between 1976 and 2010. It is one of the area's "heritage" stations and is one of the very few remaining beautiful music...
Cathedral City
Cathedral City, California
Cathedral City is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. The population was 51,200 at the 2010 census. Sandwiched between Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage, it is one of the cities in the Coachella Valley of southern California...
at 98.5 MHz. KPLM broadcasts at 106.1 MHz.
The station then called KPAL was founded in 1974 by Los Angeles radio personality Magnificent Montague
Magnificent Montague
Nathaniel "Magnificent" Montague , is an American R&B disc jockey notable not only for the soul music records he helped promote on KGFJ Los Angeles and WWRL New York City, but whose trademark catch-phrase, "Burn, baby! Burn!" became the rallying cry of the 1965 Watts riots.Semi-retired by the...
, whose trademark shout, "Burn!" was expanded to "Burn, baby, burn" during the 1965 Watts riots
Watts Riots
The Watts Riots or the Watts Rebellion was a civil disturbance in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California from August 11 to August 15, 1965. The 5-day riot resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, and 3,438 arrests...
. The construction permit for the station was the first issued to an African-American in four decades. Call sign
Call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...
"KPLM" became available in 1979 when a local television station was purchased by Esquire magazine. Today, that same TV station retains the call letters of KESQ-TV
KESQ-TV
KESQ-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Coachella Valley of California licensed to Palm Springs. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 42 from a transmitter on Edom Hill northeast of Cathedral City and I-10...
although Esquire no longer owns it.
KPLM was an easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
station through the first years of its existence. By the early 1980s, Montague sold his interest in the station which soon featured legendary Los Angeles radio personality Al Lohman
Al Lohman
Al Lohman was a personality and comedian with a long career in American radio from the 1950s through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Among his early career stops was a stint as morning man at New York City top-40 station WABC when it first adopted a pop music format in 1960...
in the weekday morning drive slot. A change was made to a contemporary country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
format on January 5, 1994 giving KPLM an exclusive audience; no other FM country music station was on the air in the area at that time. After signing off the old format with "What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, the new format's first three songs were "Don't Rock the Jukebox" by Alan Jackson
Alan Jackson
Alan Eugene Jackson is an American country music singer, known for blending traditional honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own hits. He has recorded 13 studio albums, 3 Greatest Hits albums, 2 Holiday albums, 1 Gospel album and several compilations, all on the Arista...
, "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks
Garth Brooks
Troyal Garth Brooks , best known as Garth Brooks, is an American country music artist who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at number 2 in the US country album chart while climbing to number 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart...
and "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus
Billy Ray Cyrus
William "Billy" Ray Cyrus is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor and philanthropist, who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon...
.
1996 saw new parent company RM Broadcasting expand its market share with the acquisition of financially troubled, Palm Desert-based KLCX, only on the air for a brief time at 102.3 MHz under a classic rock
Classic rock
Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...
format. KLCX was immediately reformatted into KJJZ
KJJZ
KJJZ is a 2.6 kW Class A commercial smooth jazz radio station licensed in Indio, California, with studios in Palm Springs and which serves the greater Coachella Valley on 102.3 FM. The transmitter site is on a peak of the Indio Hills....
, a pioneering smooth jazz
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....
radio station under the program direction of Jim "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a major smooth jazz concert promoter from New York who has been in the morning drive slot since the station's inception. Studios for both stations are in the same Palm Springs location.
A third station, KAJR-FM
KAJR
KAJR is a 1.75 kW Class A commercial radio station licensed in Indian Wells, California, which broadcasts to the greater Coachella Valley and the Morongo Basin at 95.9 MHz. Originally a JACK-FM affiliate, KAJR airs a soft AC music format branded as "The Oasis" as of February 1, 2010.The...
at 95.9 MHz took to the air as a fully automated Jack FM
Jack FM
JACK FM is the alternative name and on-air brand of 60 radio stations in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia. Jack stations play a mix of 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s hits with some current hot adult contemporary singles. Jack's slogan "playing what we want" can also be...
affiliate beginning in August 2007.
KPLM has the distinction of covering a greater terrestrial area than any other Palm Springs station coupled with a worldwide audience via the internet as of November 30, 2006. KPLM's transmitter is on a mountain along the edge of Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree National Park is located in southeastern California. Declared a U.S. National Park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act , it had previously been a U.S. National Monument since 1936. It is named for the Joshua tree forests native to the park...
. As a result, the station not only blankets the Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, the largest lake in California...
but reaches northward to the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
, southward to Imperial County and northern Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
and westward via two repeaters to the San Gorgonio Pass
San Gorgonio Pass
The San Gorgonio Pass el. cuts between the San Bernardino Mountains on the north and the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. Like the Cajon Pass to the northwest, it was also created by the San Andreas Fault...
cities of Banning
Banning, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Banning had a population of 29,603. The population density was 1,281.6 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Banning was 19,164 White, 2,165 African American, 641 Native American, 1,549 Asian, 39 Pacific Islander, 4,604 from other...
, Temecula
Temecula, California
Temecula is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States with a population of 100,097 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it the lowest populated American city over 100,000 population. It was incorporated on December 1, 1989...
and Hemet
Hemet, California
Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California, United States. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 78,657 at the 2010 census....
. The first is located on Snow Peak above Banning; the second is within the city of Hemet.
The station also plays an active role in bringing major country acts to the area; indeed, the station is the most active of all Palm Springs stations in sponsoring major concerts. Concerts in 2007 included Vince Gill
Vince Gill
Vincent Grant "Vince" Gill is an American neotraditional country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman to the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s, and as a solo artist beginning in 1983, where his talents as a...
with wife Amy Grant
Amy Grant
Amy Lee Grant is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, media personality and actress, best known for her Christian music. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christian Pop"...
, Trisha Yearwood
Trisha Yearwood
Patricia Lynn Yearwood, professionally known as Trisha Yearwood , is an American country music artist. She is best known for her ballads about vulnerable young women from a female perspective that have been described by some music critics as "strong" and "confident."Trisha Yearwood signed with MCA...
and Reba McEntire
Reba McEntire
Reba Nell McEntire is an American country music artist and actress. She began her career in the music industry as a high school student singing in the Kiowa High School band , on local radio shows with her siblings, and at rodeos. As a solo act, she was invited to perform at a rodeo in Oklahoma...
. Superstar duo Montgomery Gentry
Montgomery Gentry
Montgomery Gentry is an American country music duo composed of vocalists Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry. The two began performing in the 1990s as part of a band which also included Eddie Montgomery's brother John Michael Montgomery, and founded the existing duo in 1999.Signed to Columbia Records,...
concluded the 2007 calendar in October at the Spa Resort Casino in downtown Palm Springs. 2008 concluded with Wynonna Judd
Wynonna Judd
Wynonna Ellen Judd is an American country music singer. Her solo albums and singles are all credited to the singular name Wynonna. Wynonna first rose to fame in the 1980s alongside her mother, Naomi, in the country music duo The Judds...
who appeared for a holiday concert at the McCallum Theatre
McCallum Theatre
The McCallum Theatre is a 1,127-seat state-of-the-art theatre and concert venue located on the southern edge of the campus of College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California, USA....
in December; 2009 began with Josh Turner
Josh Turner
Joshua Otis "Josh" Turner is a country music singer and actor signed to MCA Nashville Records in 2003, Turner has released four studio albums for the label. The first of these was 2003's Long Black Train, whose title track was his breakthrough single release...
at the McCallum and Brooks & Dunn
Brooks & Dunn
Brooks & Dunn was an American country music duo consisting of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, who were both vocalists and songwriters. They were paired by record producer Tim DuBois in 1990. Before the duo's foundation, both members of the duo were solo recording artists...
at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, both in February.
Other key on-air personnel include news director Jeff Michaels, production manager and nighttime talent Nick Summers, promotions manager Kory James and program director
Program director
In service industries, such as education, a program director or programme director researches, plans, develops and implements one or more of the firm's professional services...
Al Gordon.
As previously mentioned, both KPLM and KJJZ stream in real time via the internet. Both dial-up and broadband connections are supported and the KPLM stream is immediately accessible via the website listed to the right.