KFSG switch represents a changing Southland

The programming from one of the oldest radio stations in Los Angeles ends tonight after nearly eight decades, replaced by a format that reflects the Southland’s fastest-growing audience.

At midnight, KFSG-FM (93.5), which went on the air Feb. 6, 1924, as a service of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, will cease its Christian music and talk and begin offering Spanish-language music from its current operator, Spanish Broadcasting System.

The new station joins the company’s other L.A. music outlets: the adult contemporary KXOL-FM (96.3), “El Sol,” and the regional Mexican KLAX-FM (97.9), “La Raza.”

Jim Tanner, Spanish Broadcasting’s executive vice president for programming, wouldn’t disclose what KFSG’s new format will be, saying only that it will be “very up-tempo and very fun.”

“There’s a significant portion of the Latin American audience that doesn’t have a radio station to represent its tastes,” he said. “The idea is to put on something that’s unique.”

Before that, though, KFSG talk-show host Steve Boalt will hand off his listeners to KKLA-FM (99.5), another Christian talk station. Boalt will simulcast his KFSG program from 5:05 to 5:20 p.m. today on KKLA, during the latter’s “Duffy & Company/Live From L.A.” show.

Interestingly, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel used to own KKLA in the 1940s and ‘50s, as part of its long history of broadcast involvement. Church founder Aimee Semple McPherson, the pioneering evangelist, was the “first woman to preach the gospel by radio,” in 1922 in Oakland, according to KFSG’s own history.

KFSG originated at 1080 on the AM dial and was the namesake of the Foursquare Gospel church, the year after McPherson built the 5,300-seat Angelus Temple in Echo Park in 1923. The station, known as “Radio for the Soul,” jumped around the AM dial for decades until the church bought the 96.3 FM frequency in 1961 and eventually moved KFSG there.

In November 2000, looking for a station with a stronger signal in the Southland, Spanish Broadcasting bought the license to 96.3 from the Foursquare Church for $250 million. The following May, the company debuted “El Sol” at 96.3, while the church moved its KFSG call letters and programming to its current home, 93.5 -- broadcast from KFSG in Redondo Beach and KFSB in Ontario -- which Spanish Broadcasting owns and leased to Foursquare. That lease runs out Saturday, however, and Spanish Broadcasting decided to resume control of the frequency and reprogram it, Tanner said.

“What this represents is the emerging Spanish-language market. Along with the proliferation of formats in Spanish-language radio, you have a lot of the techniques used in English-language” radio, Tanner said, such as marketing and audience polling. “Spanish-language [radio] has grown up a great deal and become a very, very competitive business in Los Angeles.”