First years on 1050 AM In
1956, the station first
signed on as KRBO. It was owned by Rainbow, Incorporated, hence the
call sign. The station's original
city of license was
Las Vegas, and it broadcast on 1050 kHz. Because there is a
Class I-A station on 1050,
XEG in
Monterrey, Mexico, with 150,000 watts, KRBO was limited to only 250 watts and was a
daytimer, required to be off the air at sunset.
Move to 1140 AM, subsequent formats The station was acquired by Meyer Gold, who relocated the studios to the
New Frontier Hotel and Casino, changing the call sign to KLUC, for "Luck". Gold was able to get the
Federal Communications Commission to allow a move to 1140 kHz in the late 1960s. That was coupled with a boost to 1,000 watts and eventual full-time broadcasting. In the past, AM 1140 ran a variety of formats, including
adult contemporary in the 1970s and mid-1980s as KMJJ,
heavy metal The Crusher from 1987 to 1990, and then an AM simulcast of co-owned
KLUC-FM. In 1993, the station switched to a
tourist information service branded as KXNO
Casino Radio, which carried a loop of advertising for shows, casinos and hotels in Las Vegas. In 2001, KSFN flipped to a talk format as
Hot Talk 1140, with a lineup featuring programs including
Tom Leykis,
Phil Hendrie, and
Opie & Anthony. In January 2005, the station re-branded as
Spike 1140 AM, a
brand extension of the then co-owned, male-oriented cable channel
Spike. The station added sports programming, including an
affiliation with
Sporting News Radio. It also began carrying
Los Angeles Dodgers baseball (the team claims southern Nevada within its territory).
Back to Sports On April 14, 2008, KSFN returned to an all-sports format. It dropped Leykis, and did not pick up the
Mike O'Meara Show after the retirement of
Don Geronimo from the
Don and Mike Show. At the same time, the station added
Dan Patrick and expanded programming from
Sporting News Radio while retaining Opie & Anthony and the Dodgers. The new format also included local personalities Casey Freelove and Corey Olson hosting "Freelove and Olson" weeknights 7-9pm and Saturdays 1-4pm. Beginning in August 2008, KSFN also gained the rights to be the official Las Vegas station for
USC Trojans football in Las Vegas and began carrying the
Sports USA Radio Network NFL doubleheader.
KYDZ Radio, return to Sports On March 2, 2009, the station changed its call sign to KYDZ and flipped to a
children's radio format branded as
KYDZ Radio, focusing on
teen pop and other songs oriented towards
tweens. At 9:01 p.m. Pacific Time on January 1, 2013, KYDZ returned to sports talk as an owned-and-operated outlet of the newly established
CBS Sports Radio Network. The station's final song as KYDZ Radio was "I Wanna Be
SpongeBob" by AM2.
Entercom/Audacy ownership On February 2, 2017,
CBS Radio announced it would merge with
Entercom. The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on the 17th. In August 2017, a reporter from
KLAS-TV obtained an internal e-mail that instructed all of CBS's radio stations in Las Vegas, including KXST, to not cover or otherwise acknowledge the city's new
National Hockey League team, the
Vegas Golden Knights, on any platform as retaliation for having been outbid by competitor
KRLV for rights to be the team's flagship radio station. Following the reports, CBS Radio Las Vegas senior vice president Tony Perlongo apologized to the team and told
The Washington Post that he had reversed the policy, stating that it was an "error in judgement on our part", and that CBS Radio would "cover the team, first and foremost on Sports Radio 1140 and on our music and news/talk stations as it makes sense for those formats and audiences." On June 21, 2021, KXST changed its format from CBS Sports Radio to sports gambling, branded as "The Bet Las Vegas", with programming from the
BetQL Network. CBS Sports Radio programming remained in non-prime timeslots. This would be the station's final format, as the sale of its transmitter site lead to the license being cancelled.
End of transmission On February 13, 2023, Audacy announced that KXST would be signing off on March 1, 2023. In November 2022, Audacy sold the land that the AM transmitter sat on for $40 million in an area currently being developed for industrial warehouse uses; KXST was diplexed with
KDWN near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. KXST's BetQL schedule was simulcast on the second HD Radio channel of KLUC-FM, and that station continues to carry the network. Both KXST and KDWN signed off at midnight on February 28, 2023; in the case of KXST, the change on-air was signaled by the station cutting off the beginning of CBS Sports Radio's "After Hours" show, abruptly switching over to "
The Star-Spangled Banner" as performed by
Chris Stapleton at
Super Bowl LVII. The station then concluded its broadcasting activities with the hourly station ID, followed by a picture of the transmitter sites transmitted by
slow scan television, and a series of
Q code messages ending with "KXST QRT", the latter portion the Q code signal to end transmission. On September 21, 2023, KXST and sister station KDWN filed applications with the FCC to relocate the two stations' towers and return to the air. No exact timeline was given. The stations did not return to the air within a year of shutting down; on March 11, 2024, Audacy submitted an application to cancel the license. The
Federal Communications Commission cancelled the station’s license on March 22, 2024 because it had been
silent for more than twelve consecutive months. ==References==