City St. George, Utah Slogan Fox News 1450 First air date 1956 (as KDXU) | Broadcast area St. George Frequency 1450 kHz Format Talk radio | |
KZNU (1450 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a talk radio format to the St. George, Utah, United States, area. The station is owned by Canyon Media.
History
The 1450 kHz frequency was the home to KDXU from 1956 until 1985. In September 1985 KDXU switched its radio frequency to 890 kHz and increased power to 10,000 watts.
KDXU broadcast engineer and local cable-TV owner Ray Carpenter filed for a new radio station on 1450 kHz, which was granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in early 1986 and became KATJ. In November 1986, former Bonneville International executives Joseph A. Kjar, Donald Bybee and Blaine W. Whipple purchased the station from Carpenter, changing the call sign to KDLX on January 1, 1987.
Kjar, Whipple, and Bybee sold the station in November 1988 to Las Vegas broadcaster Jack London (Paul G. Maziar) who subsequently filed bankruptcy. London's partner in the purchase was veteran broadcast executive E. Morgan Skinner, Jr., a former Bonneville employee, who purchased the station from bankruptcy and changed the call sign to KSLI, and changed again to KSGI in December under threat of a trademark lawsuit by Bonneville, owners of KSL in Salt Lake City.
On New Year's Eve 1988, the Quail Creek Reservoir Dam near Hurricane broke, sending a 4-meter (12 foot) wall of water down the Virgin River and causing over US$11 million of damage to houses, farms, roads and utilities, including KSGI, whose transmitter site was located near the river in St. George. The dam breach destroyed the transmitter building and tower site, sending parts of the transmitter downstream nearly 16 km (10 miles).
Skinner put the station back to the air within two weeks, with the assistance of Las Vegas broadcaster Steve Gold, Las Vegas-based tower builder Dennis Todd and Las Vegas broadcast engineer Patrick O'Gara.
Skinner sold the station, together with KZEZ (FM) 99.9 MHz, which Skinner built with partner Lavon Randall to Simmons Media Group of St. George in 1998. Simmons operated KSGI under an LMA changing the call sign to KTSP in 1998 and again to KZNU in 2001. Simmons was unsuccessful at getting FCC approval of the purchase, resulting from multiple ownership issues, and partnered with M. Kent Frandsen to organize Canyon Media Corporation, of which Western Broadcasting, LLC (Simmons) retained a thirty-percent (30%) non-attributable interest. Canyon Media Corporation acquired KZNU 1450 kHz (AM), St. George, Utah, and KZEZ 99.9 MHz (FM) in 2005. The latter is currently broadcasting country music with the call letters KONY.
KZNU Sports was added to Fox News KZNU radio in 2012. Blake's Take on KZNU Sports provides St. George live, local high school sports networking on the radio, a mobile device software application, and a Web site (KZNUsports.com) with live sports video streams.