History
The station signed on August 28, 1954, as KONI, the ninth radio station in Phoenix; [2] originally KBLR, the station's callsign changed by the time it signed on. KONI became KXIV in 1961. Until 1982, KXIV was programmed with a middle of the road (MOR) music format. The station was co-owned by Ira Lavin and actor Dick Van Dyke (an Arizona resident). [3] [4] Disc jockeys included George Scott, Jack Dey, Jim Hutton, Paul B. Mundt, and Jim Spero (who also served as program director). [5]
Van Dyke and Lavin sold KXIV in 1982 to local real estate developer Michael Levin, who relaunched the station with a news/talk format as KSUN, featuring personalities from ABC's TalkRadio Network, NBC's Talknet and audio from CNN2. [6] The call letters had been sold to Levin by the previous KSUN in Bisbee, at the time silent and in receivership. [7] Hourly discount auctions through a segment called "BarterBank" were also heavily advertised. Levin's tenure running KSUN was marred by suspicious vandalism [8] and layoffs. [9] The station fell into bankruptcy and went silent on Memorial Day weekend 1983. [10]
CAZ Broadcasting bought KSUN out of bankruptcy in 1984 [10] and brought the station back the next year as an affiliate of the original Radio AAHS, a radio service developed for children, with adult-oriented music at night. [11] By 1986, KSUN was running jazz full-time with minor league baseball play-by-play of the Phoenix Firebirds, having lost Radio AAHS when Children's Radio Network opted to cease distributing it outside of its owned-and-operated stations. [12] After an abortive attempt to sell the station to TransCom, owners of KLZI 99.9 FM, [13] and going silent again at the end of summer, Fiesta Radio purchased the station in November 1986. [14] Radio Fiesta officially signed on March 23, 1987. [15] The station became a sports play-by-play specialist; it was the long-time home of Spanish broadcasts of the Arizona Diamondbacks (now on KHOV), first carrying all 162 games in 2004, [16] and continues to carry Suns games. In 2021, the station will broadcast Phoenix Rising FC games. [17]
In 2015, the station partnered with Mexican radio company MVS Radio to launch its regional Mexican La Mejor format in Phoenix.