A Brief History of Radio in MN
1922
WLAG, the city’s first commercial radio station, goes on air at 9 am from the sixth floor of the Oak Grove Hotel. Two years later, the Washburn-Crosby flour company buys the station and changes its call letters to WCCO.
1936
Stanley Hubbard Sr.’s KSTP boasts the largest news department in the country with the biggest library west of New York. Hubbard outfits his own car with sirens and lights so he can beat his own reporters to crime scenes.
1957
WCOW abandons its cowbell and western music for a short-lived “female-oriented format” (despite being 100 percent run by men) before ultimately embracing Top 40 and changing its call letters to KDWB.
1961
Escalating its battle with WDGY for second place (behind the mighty ’CCO), KDWB becomes the first station in the country to be fined by the FCC for violating its license by blasting its full 5,000-watt power after sundown.
1961
WCCO’s Cedric Adams—about whom an airline pilot once said, “I knew when his 10 pm news was over because I could see the lights go out across the state”—goes silent after 30 years, dying from a heart attack.
1963
WDGY DJ Bill Diehl hosts a Halloween dance at a St. Louis Park roller rink featuring local ragamuffins The Trashmen, who have a national hit with “Surfin’ Bird.” Two thousand crazed teenyboppers unexpectedly, ahem, trash the roller rink.
1965
Wolfman Jack, whose national rock show is blasted from the 250,000-watt XERF in Acuña, Mexico, buys KUXL, an R&B station in Golden Valley. Jack relocates to Minny and begins recording his show at KUXL, shipping his tapes to Mexico each day.
1971
KSTP moves away from its talk format and fires Steve Cannon. The Cannon Mess moves to WCCO, bringing his imaginary friends Morgan Mundane, Backlash LaRue, and Ma Linger with him.
1976
KMOJ, the People’s Station, begins broadcasting from the Glenwood-Lyndale housing projects in north Minneapolis. At first, its signal can only be heard within a few blocks, and only during the day, but musicians like Prince and Morris Day are listening.
1987
Garrison Keillor cancels Prairie Home Companion, the old-timey radio show that grew MPR from a college station to a national network, and exiles himself to the native Denmark of his new wife, Ulla Skaerved. To the woe of many, he doesn’t stay.
1997
Howard Stern comes into the Twin Cities hot, talking trash about the perennial ratings leader, The KQRS Morning Show. Stern proves no match for our own provincial crass master, Tom Barnard, and exits the market after a year.
1998
Jesse “The Body” Ventura takes a hiatus from his morning talk show on sports station KFAN for a ludicrous run at governor. Ventura actually wins, leaving his seat warmer, Paul “Voice of the Minnesota Vikings” Allen, to hold his place for 23 years and counting.
2002
Fake nipple purveyors Lori Barghini and Julia Cobbs get their own show on Hubbard’s myTalk107. Lori and Julia add their names—like Boone and Erickson or Knapp and Donuts—to the radio duo pantheon.
2004
Midmorning host Katherine Lanpher leaves MPR for New York City to join Al Franken’s Air America talker The O’Franken Factor.
2005
St. Olaf sells its 37-year-old classical station, WCAL, to MPR, which in turn hires a bunch of alt-rock REV105 vets, like Mary Lucia and Mark Wheat, for its foray into less boring musical radio, The Current.
2022
In January, the oldest (and still coolest) radio station in Minnesota, KUOM—known as Radio K since its ’93 merger with WMMR—will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first federal license issued to a radio station in Minnesota.
