Clinton, Mo. - (December 27th, 2021) - Radford Media Group was notified last week that Crown Castle will decommission the KDKD-AM tower located behind the Radford Media Studios at 2201 North Antioch in Clinton, Missouri after the first of the year. Since Radford Media Group doesn’t own the tower that the station broadcasts from, on Friday, December 31st at 5:15PM, KDKD-AM will be powering down for the final time.
Crown Castle is a real estate investment trust and provider of shared communications infrastructure in the United States and purchased the tower from Good Radio.TV-Missouri, LLC in 2011 when Good Radio owned and operated the Clinton radio stations. When Radford Media purchased the stations in 2018 from Alpha Media, the towers were not a part of the agreement.
Radford Media Group was presented with the plan to decommission the tower earlier in the 4th quarter. Crown Castle informed Radford Media of their final decision late last week and gave 2-3 weeks notice.
This tower also houses two Studio Transmitter Links for KDKD-FM & KXEA-FM which will need to be upgraded to new digital encoders. Our engineers are working seamlessly to switch both FM’s to digital before Crown Castle’s crew begins their process of removing the tower.
KDKD-AM has been on-air since the early 1950’s and an original affiliate of the Kansas City Royals Radio Network. Over the years the station has provided many formats of programming including classic rock as Classic 1280, Ag and Farm news as Ag1280, and recently a talk station featuring Glenn Beck, Dan Bongino, Kim Commando, and many more. Even though, in accordance with the FCC license, the station lowers its broadcast signal at sunset, the station could still be heard across Clinton at night.
You can tune in on Friday afternoon at 5PM on KDKD-AM 1280 and simulcast on 95.3 KDKD-FM to hear a history of the station before signing off.
In 2022, Radford Media will continue it’s long partnership with the Kansas City Royals and feature games on Rock 104.9 KXEA-FM as it once did for a brief time in the 2010’s. Radford Media has yet to announce any other programming moving from KDKD-AM to it’s FM’s.
“We are saddened to see the once prominent KDKD-AM station power down, but it’s in the hands of the ones who own the tower,” said Clay Radford, Chairman and CEO of Radford Media Group. “With the technological advancements in FM & HD radio, we look forward to providing additional content to our communities with digital upgrades that we will be able to accomplish in the near future.”