KRLD first
signed on the air in October
1926. It was originally owned by Radio Laboratories of Dallas, hence the
call sign. At first it was on the air for six hours each day, except on Wednesdays when the station closed down to make repairs and recharge the
batteries. The
Dallas Times Herald, then published by Edwin J. Kiest, purchased KRLD within a year of its debut, in 1927. Since 1939, KRLD has broadcast at a power of 50,000 watts, the highest allowed by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In the summer of 1941, KRLD moved to 1080 on the AM dial as a result of the
North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA). During the
Golden Age of Radio, KRLD carried
CBS network programming, including dramas, comedies, news, sports, game shows, soap operas and
big band broadcasts. KRLD expanded into FM radio in 1948 with the original KRLD-FM 92.5 (now
KZPS). The following year, it added a TV station, KRLD-TV Channel 4 (now
KDFW). For most of the 1960s and 1970s, KRLD ran blocks of different local programming, including
middle of the road and
country music, with some news and talk. In April
1978, KRLD switched from a music-based format to become, at the time, the third news and information station in Dallas/Fort Worth. KRLD originally broadcast from the
Adolphus Hotel in Dallas and for a time had its main studios in
Arlington within the centerfield office complex at what is now
Choctaw Stadium, when it served as the home of the
Texas Rangers. In the summer of 2005, the station moved operations to a 5th floor office at the southwest corner of North Fitzhugh Avenue and Central Expressway in Dallas. KRLD achieved several firsts in the field of radio broadcasting: • first station to present live broadcasts of high school and
college football games. • first to offer continuous election returns. • first to broadcast live music and entertainment programs.
The Big D Jamboree, which originated from the since-demolished
Dallas Sportatorium, was a regular Saturday fixture on KRLD in the 1950s and 1960s. KRLD also aired wrestling matches from the Sportatorium, with longtime sportscaster
Bill Mercer calling the action. History books dispute whether KRLD,
KDKA in
Pittsburgh, or
WEAF in New York City (today
WFAN) was the first station to broadcast
commercial announcements on radio.
Branch Davidian leader
David Koresh used KRLD to broadcast his messages in
1993 during his standoff with the government and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, near
Waco, Texas. During the 1970s and 1980s, KRLD was the
flagship station for the
NFL's
Dallas Cowboys, with
Brad Sham providing color analysis and later play-by-play. (Sham continues as the Cowboys' lead voice, though the team's games now air on
sister station KRLD-FM.) Beginning in 1995, KRLD served as the radio flagship of the
MLB's
Texas Rangers, when its operations were based at Ameriquest Field's centerfield office complex. In 2009, weekday games moved from KRLD to KRLD-FM. KRLD relinquished the Rangers' English language radio rights in
2011 to
sports radio station 103.3
KESN. Rangers broadcasts returned to KRLD-FM in 2015 with broadcasts moving over to KRLD (AM) when conflicting with other programming, such as Cowboy games, on the FM channel. . Over the last several decades, KRLD has gone between being an all-news station and a talk station. On September 27, 2010, KRLD began broadcasting continuous news from 5am-8pm on weekdays, as well as weekend mornings, with talk programming at night and during most of the weekend. The weekday non-stop all-news format came to an end on June 17, 2024, when KRLD started carrying syndicated conservative talk host Chad Benson weekdays from noon to 3:00, breaking up the all-news block. On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with Entercom (now known as Audacy). The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on the 17th. Despite this, KRLD and former sister TV station
KTVT (a
CBS owned-and-operated affiliate) maintained a strong partnership up until April 26, 2018, when Entercom struck a new content deal with
NBC owned-and-operated
KXAS-TV. ==Honors==