KTAR (AM)

KTAR (620 kHz) is an AM commercial radio station licensed to Phoenix, Arizona, United States. Owned and operated by Bonneville International, it features a sports format airing programming from ESPN Radio. The studios are located in north Phoenix near Piestewa Peak, and the station broadcasts with 5,000 watts from a transmitter site near the corner of 36th Street and Thomas Road.

KTAR was established in 1922 as KFAD, owned by the McArthur brothers, and became one of just two stations in Phoenix (alongside KOY) from the early 1920s through 1940. It was purchased by The Arizona Republican (soon renamed the Arizona Republic) in 1929 and adopted its present call sign in January 1930 as part of a major overhaul. From the 1930s for several decades, KTAR was the key NBC radio affiliate in the state. Its program director, John Howard Pyle, jumped from radio to politics and served two terms as Governor of Arizona. KTAR, which added a television station (KVAR, later KTAR-TV) in 1954 and an FM radio station in 1960, grew into one of the most important broadcasters in the state. After dropping music programming in 1973 to focus on news, talk, sports, and information, it consolidated itself as the leading station of its kind in Phoenix under the ownership of Combined Communications Corporation and Pulitzer Broadcasting; Bonneville has owned KTAR since 2004.

While KTAR primarily broadcasts network programming and live sports overflow, its local programming was spun out in two stages onto the FM band. In 2006, KTAR-FM (92.3) began airing all of KTAR's news and talk programming, and the AM station adopted a full-time sports format. KPKX (98.7 FM) was flipped from music to become KMVP-FM "Arizona Sports" in January 2014, allowing the AM station to become a full-time ESPN Radio outlet and moving local sports talk programming to FM. As Bonneville holds the radio broadcast rights to most major professional and college sports in Phoenix, KTAR carries games in the event of scheduling conflicts and, in the case of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals, as a simulcast with KMVP-FM.

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