KFYI

KFYI (550 AM) is a commercial radio station in Phoenix, Arizona. KFYI has a talk radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The studios and offices are located on East Van Buren Street, off Hohokam Freeway, near Sky Harbor Airport. The signal covers the Phoenix metropolitan area and it uses the slogan "The Valley's Talk Station."
KFYI is powered at 5,000 watts by day. At night, to protect other stations on AM 550, KFYI reduces power to 1,000 watts. It uses a non-directional antenna. The transmitter is on South 36th Street near East Vinyard Road in Phoenix. KFYI transmits in analog AM. Programming is also heard on an HD Radio subchannel of co-owned 95.5 KYOT-HD2.
Programming.
KFYI's weekday lineup begins a local interview and information show hosted by James T. Harris, "The Conservative Circus." In afternoon drive time, Mike Russell and Rob Hunter host "Russell & Hunter." The rest of the weekday schedule is nationally syndicated conservative talk shows, supplied by co-owned Premiere Networks. They include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Coast to Coast AM with George Noory.
Weekends include shows on money, health, gardening, real estate, an outdoors program called "The GO Show" hosted by Mike Russell and Arizona's only beer radio show, "The Brewmance," co-hosted by Russell and Hunter. Some weekend shows are paid brokered programming, including Ric Edelman. Weekend syndicated programming includes "Handel on the Law" with Bill Handel and "Sunday Night Live" with Bill Cunningham. Newscasters include Dawn Nici, Gregg Paul and Carol Batchelor. On weekdays, local newscasters are heard at the beginning of each hour. Nights and weekends, the hour begins with world and national news from Fox News Radio.
History.
Early Years.
On September 6, 1922, the station signed on with the sequentially issued call letters KFCB. It was the second radio station in Arizona, after KTAR went on the air three months earlier. KFCB was owned by the Nielson Radio Supply Company of Phoenix. After using several frequencies in its early years, it settled on 1390 kilocycles, with a power of 1,000 watts by day, 500 watts at night.
On February 8, 1929 the call letters were changed to KOY, which it would keep for 70 years. The station became a CBS Radio Network affiliate, running its dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and big band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio."
Top 40.
In the 1960s and 70s, KOY played Top 40 hits. It was acquired by The Southern Company in 1967. Southern also acquired an FM station in 1971, 95.5 KRFM, which played beautiful music. It later became KQYT, standing for "Quiet."
In the 1980s, as hit music shifted from AM to FM, KQYT became Top 40 Y-95, taking the KOY call letters and format from 550 AM. That led KOY to switch to a middle of the road format of popular adult music, news and talk. By the 1990s, it had moved all the way to adult standards.
Sports and Talk.
In 1997, San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications acquired Chancellor Media, which owned KOY and its FM sister station, which had changed its call letters to KYOT. Clear Channel also acquired AMFM, Inc. That came with AM 910 KGME and FM 102.5 KZON. On May 7, 1999, KOY's call letters were changed to KGME, with 550 taking on a sports radio format. The call letters represented the word "Game." The KOY call sign was transferred to the former KISO, operating on 1230 kHz.
A year later, on September 26, 2000, there was a further call letter swap. The talk radio format on AM 910, along with its KFYI call sign, were moved to AM 550. And the sports format and KGME call letters were moved to AM 910. The call sign KFYI had been previously used by a station in Oakland, California, now KMKY. KFYI signed on at 5:30am on July 10, 1985 with Morning Host Charlie Van Dyke, newsman Brad Messer and sports anchor Jim Jeffrey. KFYI host Barry Young served as the station's program director from 1988 until 1998, retiring from the station on November 7, 2014.
Former Congressman J. D. Hayworth hosted a weekday show in the late 2000s on KFYI. He resigned from KFYI in 2010 to pursue an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate against Senator John McCain.
Controversy.
On March 8, 2006, KFYI made news when fill-in host Brian James suggested that the United States National Guard and Border Patrol should shoot to kill people illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. He also said on the air that he would be "happy to sit there with my high-powered rifle and my night scope" and kill people as they cross the border.
Those remarks prompted Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton to complain to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), calling the remarks "irresponsible and dangerous".