Product Code Database
XEWW-AM (690 Hertz) is a radio station licensed to the Rosarito/Tijuana area of Baja California, Mexico. XEWW airs a Spanish language talk radio format.
At night it uses a five-tower array directional antenna, decreasing power to 50,000 watts to protect CBU Vancouver, British Columbia, and CKGM Montreal. Both are the dominant Class A stations on AM 690. Despite the directional antenna pattern, the signal can be heard in most of the Southwestern United States at night. While AM 690 is programmed for the U.S. side of the border, the present Rosarito transmitter facility strongly favors service to Baja California, with a signal that extends further south than north, due to protections to avoid interference with Canadian stations on 690.
NARBA prompted a major shuffling of radio station frequencies, and XEAC wound up on 690 kHz. More than 15 years later, this would play a vital role in changes at the station. In the early 1950s, XEAC spawned a television station, which was initially assigned the callsign XEAC-TV but changed to XETV-TDT before signing on.
In 1957, a new group known as California Broadcasters, Inc., with headquarters in the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood, was formed by Rivera to manage U.S. sales and programming rights to the station, which changed its call letters that year from XEAC to XEAK. In 1958, the concession for XEAC was sold to Radiodifusora del Pacífico, S.A.
While XEAC had continued to operate with 5,000 watts, it was easy to upgrade it to 50,000, as protection of Canadian Class I-A CBF-FM Montreal would be relatively straightforward—as happened in the change from XEAC to XEAK. Ultimately, the Tijuana-based AM 690 was assigned Class I-B status. XEAK was known as "The Mighty 690", a moniker that its XETRA-AM successor used in later years. The Mighty 690 was a Top 40 station, playing the biggest hits in the U.S.
X-TRA News was a primarily "rip-and-read" operation in which two anchors traded off fifteen-minute shifts reading the Associated Press and United Press International news wires. Originally with a very stern hard news format, it slowly broadened its focus in its time on air and added more local news features from Los Angeles.
As a border blaster competing with U.S. radio stations, the Southern California Broadcasters Association challenged the operation of XETRA News as deceptive because it created association with Los Angeles though it was not a station licensed there. It threatened Federal Communications Commission action, to which McLendon responded by floating a potential antitrust lawsuit. Listeners, however, didn't care. McLendon boasted in 1965 that it had more listeners than KNX; by 1966, XETRA boasted a staff of 50.
On March 11, 1968, KFWB (980 AM) switched to all-news, pushing XETRA out of the format. McLendon knew he could not compete with KFWB; soon after, XETRA changed to an automated beautiful music format paired with McLendon's KOST in Los Angeles. By the mid '70s, McLendon had divested his interest to the concessionaire.
In succeeding decades, XETRA switched formats numerous times. During most of the 1970s, XETRA continued as a beautiful music station, competing for San Diego listeners with KJQY on the FM dial. As the easy listening format began to decline in the late 1970s, on September 19, 1980, XETRA switched back to Top 40, once again billing itself as "the Mighty 690". Later, the station switched to an oldies format, calling itself "69 XTRA Gold".
For a number of years, the station was the broadcast home of the San Diego Chargers National Football League team. The station also briefly carried Stanford University football. The out-of-market team was carried because the son of station manager John Lynch was on scholarship with the team. The younger John Lynch would go on to star on various NFL teams.
In 1996, the concession for XETRA was transferred to XETRA Comunicaciones, S.A. de C.V. In the latter part of the 1990s and most of the 2000s, XETRA simulcast with Los Angeles station KEIB to give listeners in the Los Angeles area two frequencies to hear the programming.
The station's best-known sportscaster on XETRA was Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton, who hosted a nightly sports talk program from 1987 until 2005, and was also the play-by-play voice of the Chargers from 1987 to 1996. Hacksaw is famous (and infamous) for his "best 15 minutes in radio" with "Hacksaw's Headlines" and using such phrases as "I am bleeping brilliant!" Nationally syndicated sports talk host Jim Rome also got his start on the station. He sometimes referred to this station as the "Nifty 650" on his show despite the fact that it is not on 650 kHz. Jeanne Zelasko also started at the station, broadcasting during breaks with traffic, weather and sports highlights.
In 2006, Clear Channel ceased management of the station after the Federal Communications Commission ruled that the stations licensed to Mexico had to be counted against the U.S. ownership caps (three AM stations and five FM stations). Since Clear Channel managed several Mexican-licensed stations aimed at the San Diego market, this was counted against the company's ownership limit under this ruling. Management interest of some of these outlets, including XETRA-FM, XHRM-FM, and XHITZ-FM, was spun off into Finest City Broadcasting, owned by a former Clear Channel executive.
However, management rights for XETRA-AM were sold to a firm called Grupo Latino de Radio—an American subsidiary of Grupo PRISA, which is also the 50 percent owner of Televisa Radio and which would hold a 49 percent stake in the concessionaire—which returned XETRA's previous format.
Effective December 19, 2007, AM 690's call letters were changed to XEWW to reflect the "W Radio" programming. RPC: 2007 Change of Callsign - XEWW-AM The change retired the "XETRA" call letters on AM radio after nearly a half-century, though XETRA-FM continued to use them.
On November 24, 2012, XEWW was used as an overflow station for an English-language broadcast of a USC Trojans football game against Notre Dame. Normal flagship station KSPN could not air the game due to conflicts with a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game, while KLAA was, as part of a separate contract, carrying the same game from Notre Dame's radio network.
XEWW had carried C.D. Guadalajara soccer team broadcasts. CD Chivas USA of Major League Soccer aired its games on XEWW until 2014.
XEWW was also the overflow station for English-language Los Angeles Lakers NBA basketball games when there was a conflict with another game that aired on KSPN. USC Trojans football and men's basketball games moved over to KABC at the start of the 2019–20 season.
In 2020, concerns were raised over the station by senator Ted Cruz, who alleged that the station was broadcasting Chinese government propaganda targeting Chinese Americans. A factor in the allegations was Phoenix's ownership of H&H, as the company itself is partially owned by entities connected to the Government of China. Cruz proposed an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, that would prohibit the sale of FCC-licensed stations to owners who intend to change the language in which they broadcast, unless they certify that they are not "subject to undue influence by a foreign government or a political party in power in a foreign country". The station had been operating under a special temporary authority to originate from studios in the United States, pending a formal approval by the FCC.
On June 23, 2020, the FCC dismissed the application for XEWW to be operated from the United States by H&H, as the application failed to properly attribute the involvement of Phoenix Television in the station's operation. The FCC ruling stated that "Phoenix Radio's known activities at this broadcast programming studio are such that, without reviewing its role as an applicant, the FCC could not evaluate the proposed service." The station then began airing a loop of programming which lasted three years.
|
|
