 | |
| |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Phoenix metropolitan area |
| Frequency | 710kHz |
| Branding | TUDN Radio Phoenix 710AM |
| Programming | |
| Format | Spanishsports |
| Affiliations | TUDN Radio |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| KFUE,KLNZ,KVVA-FM | |
| History | |
First air date | November 23, 1981; 43 years ago (1981-11-23) |
Last air date | November 27, 2023; 23 months ago (2023-11-27) |
Former call signs |
|
| Technical information | |
| Facility ID | 63147 |
| Class | B |
| Power |
|
Transmitter coordinates | 34°4′50.1″N112°9′15.6″W / 34.080583°N 112.154333°W /34.080583; -112.154333 |
KBMB (710AM) was acommercial radio stationlicensed toBlack Canyon City, Arizona, and serving thePhoenix metropolitan area. Owned byEntravision Communications, it last broadcast aSpanish-languagesportsformat. Most programming came from theTUDN Radio Network.
KBMB’s transmitter power was 22,000 watts daytime and 3,900 watts nighttime. It used adirectional antenna with a six-tower array. Thetransmitter was on Deep Canyon Trail, near Old Black Canyon Highway in Black Canyon City.[1]
KUETsigned on the air on November 23, 1981.[2] The first station for Black Canyon City, KUET broadcast afull-service radio format. The station, a 500-wattdaytimer, was owned by the Black Canyon Broadcasting Company (William Ledbetter and John Gates) and had studios atMetrocenter. With only a 500-watt signal, and required to go off the air at sunset, KUET failed to find an audience in the larger Phoenixradio market. On November 7, 1984, it wentsilent whenHarris Corporation repossessed its transmission equipment.[3]
KUET's license was sold to Statewide Broadcasters, Inc., in 1985. Statewide set about the task of increasing KUET's daytime power to 50,000 watts and adding nighttime service. Statewide's application was put intocomparative hearing with a bid fromTucson'sKVOI to move from 690 to 700 kHz and increase its power, but KUET won out. However, KUET remained off the air throughout the 1990s. The station was sold in 1997 to the Z-Spanish Media Group.
Z-Spanish said KUET's original 351 feet (107 m)towers, on federal land, were inadequate, and the group proposed to erect an array of seven 197 feet (60 m) towers in a move that drew local opposition. Residents gathered signatures to put the construction of the new towers toreferendum.[4] WhileYavapai County Superior Court ruled that no referendum was necessary in a win for Z-Spanish,[5] theArizona Court of Appeals overturned the verdict and found that signatures gathered by circulators from outside Yavapai County were valid.[6] In the midst of the fighting, Z-Spanish was absorbed byEntravision Communications.
Ultimately, the 7-tower setup was approved. On January 18, 2002, KUET receivedprogram test authority to begin broadcasting for the first time since 1984 as an English-languageoldies station. The new KUET also began carryingArizona State Sun Devils baseball and women's basketball in the fall of 2002 under a three-year deal.[7]
On January 7, 2003, KUET became a Spanish oldies station with new KMIA call letters. The deal to carry ASU sports was cancelled. Sports returned to KMIA in February 2006 when the station became a carrier of the newESPN Deportes Radio network.
The station's transmitter wasvandalized on March 4, 2006, when someone burned the steel support rods on four of the seven towers with a torch, causing them to crash to the ground.[8] The station returned to the air by the end of March 2006, but at severely reduced power.[9]
In 2007, another tower problem arose when the FCC fined KMIA for failing to maintain the lights on five of the towers.[10]
KMIA became KBMB on July 9, 2010.[11] Those call letters had previously belonged to an Entravision-owned FM outlet inSacramento that becameKHHM two weeks earlier.
In September 2019, with the looming shutdown of the ESPN Deportes Radio network, all Entravision-ownedaffiliates flipped toJose, a format featuringnorteño andranchera music.[12] It returned to Spanish-language sports with programming fromTUDN Radio as of August 2020.
Entravision surrendered the station's license in November 2023, following the August sale of the land under KBMB's transmitter facility to the owner of the nearby Kay mine deposit. It is not clear exactly when the station left the air.[13] In a December 1, 2023, letter to theFCC Entravision’s legal counsel requested reinstatement of the license. A request for SilentSTA was filed the same day, and was granted on December 8, 2023.[14] Entravision again requested the cancellation of the KBMB license on Ocrtober 31, 2024.[15]
TheFederal Communications Commission cancelled the station’s license on November 7, 2024.[16]