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| Broadcast area | Bismarck-Mandan |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 550kHz |
| Branding | KFYR 550 AM |
| Programming | |
| Format | News-Talk |
| Network | Fox News Radio |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| KBMR,KQDY,KSSS,KXMR,KYYY | |
| History | |
First air date | 1925; 100 years ago (1925) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 41426 |
| Class | B |
| Power | 5,000watts |
Transmitter coordinates | 46°51′12″N100°32′37″W / 46.85333°N 100.54361°W /46.85333; -100.54361 |
| Translator(s) | 99.7 K259AF (Bismarck) |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | kfyr |
KFYR (550kHz) is acommercialAMradio station inBismarck, North Dakota. It airs anews-talkradio format and is owned byiHeartMedia, Inc. Some hours on weekends, the station playsoldies. The studios are on East Rosser Avenue in Bismarck.
KFYR is powered at 5,000watts with a signal that can be heard in fourU.S. states and twoCanadian provinces. By day, it isnon-directional. But at night, the station uses adirectional antenna with a two-tower array. Thetransmitter is off 158th Street NE inMenoken. Programming is also heard on 250-wattFM translatorK259AF at 99.7MHz in Bismarck.
KFYR boasts an enormous daytime coverage area. This is due to its location near the bottom of the AM dial; lower frequencies have longer waves that tend to travel farther across terrain. This is especially true for stations that operate at 5,000 watts or more. Additionally, North Dakota's flat landscape provides near-perfectground conductivity. Combined with its transmitter height, this gives KFYR a daytime footprint equivalent to that of a full-power FM station. It can be heard across almost all of North Dakota during the day, as well as in parts ofMinnesota,South Dakota,Montana,Manitoba andSaskatchewan. Under the right conditions, it reaches intoNebraska. It has been claimed that KFYR has the largest daytime coverage area of any AM radio station in the United States. A similar claim can be made forWNAX inYankton, South Dakota, which transmits on 570 AM.
At night, two towers are used in a directional pattern to protectCBK, theCBC Radio One outlet for most of Saskatchewan, which operates on nearby 540 AM. Even with this restriction, KFYR still covers almost all of North Dakota at night. It is the primary entry point station for theEmergency Alert System in both North and South Dakota.
KFYRsigned on the air in 1925; 100 years ago (1925). It was founded by Phillip J. Meyer and his wife, Etta Hoskins Meyer. It is Bismarck's oldest radio station. KFYR began operations with programming for only a few hours daily, signing off between shows. In its early years, it was anaffiliate of theNBC Red Network, airing its dramas, comedies, news and sports during the "Golden Age of Radio."
Early programming included live studio musicians, transcribed music and programs, and live feeds from the NBC. Many popularsoap operas,game shows, sporting events,religious services, children's programs, andbig band broadcasts were part of the regular schedule. The station carried NBC'sMonitor on weekends. Other programming included local news, weather, and sports, locally originated variety programs such as "What's The Weather" weekday mornings and "The Northwest Farmfront" weekdays at noon. Mike Dosch, an established musician fromStrasburg, North Dakota (Lawrence Welk's hometown) was featured on several of the live shows and had his own late-night program of organ music for many years. There were also shows hosted by staff announcers who played recorded popular music by such artists asNat King Cole,Doris Day,The Ames Brothers,Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, and orchestras includingMantovani,Percy Faith, andFrank Chacksfield.
By 1950, the station had expanded its schedule to an 18-hour broadcast day. It began broadcasting at 6 a.m. and concluded at midnight.
In December 1953, it added television stationKFYR-TV 5. Because KFYR was part of the NBC Radio Network, KFYR-TV became western North Dakota'sNBC television affiliate, along with itsthree semi-satellites. In 1966, an FM station went on the air, KFYR-FM at 92.9 (nowKYYY).
At one time, the Meyer Broadcasting Company roster also included AM radio stations inBillings andGreat Falls, Montana, as well as an FM station inMinot, North Dakota. Marietta Meyer Ekberg, the Meyers' daughter, retired in 1998, and her radio holdings were sold toJacor Communications,. Jacor, in turn, was acquired in 1999 byClear Channel Communications, a forerunner to today's iHeartMedia.
Facing stiff competition from more youthful stations, KFYR began to see its dominance and audience decline in the early 1960s. It decided to switch to aTop 40 format. It was popular with teenagers by virtue of its "torrid twenty" countdown show, which featured the twenty popular hits of the week. In the 1960s and 1970s, teenagers from South Dakota to parts of Canada enjoyed listening to "their" music on KFYR every evening (along with 1520KOMA fromOklahoma City, 1090KAAY fromLittle Rock, 890WLS fromChicago, and 1500KSTP fromSt. Paul).
KFYR gained brief national notoriety in 1979, when the station was sued infederal court by thePointer Sisters andElektra Records. The station had created aremix of their cover ofBruce Springsteen's "Fire" with "K-Fire" dubbed into the chorus where "fire" would be sung. The suit was settled out of court.
KFYR once broadcast inAM stereo, beginning with theHarris system in the mid-1980s, and later switching to theMotorolaC-QUAM system. KFYR discontinued broadcasting in AM stereo around the turn of the millennium.[2]
As younger listeners increasingly tuned to FM for their hits, KFYR switched its music toadult contemporary andoldies. By the 1990s, it added more talk shows, until it had switched to a news-talk format. In 2011, it added anFM translator for listeners who prefer to hear the station on the FM dial. The translator on 99.7 FM was previously asimulcast ofKQDY 94.5 FM before 2011.
Today, KFYR runs a news/talk format. Local talk shows are heard in mornings and during afternoondrive time. The rest of the weekday schedule is made up ofnationally syndicatedconservative talk programs:The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,The Jesse Kelly Show,Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb,Coast to Coast AM withGeorge Noory andAmerica in the Morning. KFYR is aFox News RadioNetwork affiliate.
Weekend syndicated shows includeArmstrong & Getty andSunday Nights with Bill Cunningham. There is live play-by-play sports from theMinnesota Vikings andUniversity of Maryfootball games, and high school sporting events. Some hours on weekends includeoldies shows.
KFYR also broadcasts on anFM translator:
| Call sign | Frequency | City of license | FID | ERP (W) | Class | FCC info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K259AF | 99.7 FM | Bismarck, North Dakota | 2203 | 250 | D | LMS |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
