KWKW (1330 AM, "") is a Spanish-language commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States, featuring a talk format with sports play-by-play. Owned by Lotus Communications, the station serves Greater Los Angeles and much of surrounding Southern California. The studios for KWKW are located in the Los Angeles Hollywood Hills neighborhood, while the station transmitter is located in the nearby Crenshaw District, shared with KABC () and KFOX (). In addition to a standard analog transmission, KWKW's programming is streamed online and relayed over low-power translator K264CQ ().
This station was launched as KJS by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in 1922, renamed KTBI in 1925, and is the oldest surviving radio station in the United States to be built and signed on by a religious institution. The onset of the Great Depression led KTBI to be sold to a group led by Errett Lobban Cord in 1931, who rechristened it KFAC; Cord became sole owner the following year. With no network affiliation, KFAC featured popular local programs including the children's show "Whoa Bill" Club, and was a career stepping stone for multiple Hollywood celebrities and actors. Throughout the 1940s, KFAC gradually adopted fine arts and classical music programming on a full-time basis, becoming one of the first radio stations in the United States to do so. As a classical station, KFAC boasted an airstaff with unprecedented stability and continuity including announcers Carl Princi and Fred Crane, and possessed the largest classical music library of its kind west of the Mississippi. The nightly Gas Company Evening Concert debuted in 1940 and ran continuously for nearly 49 years, 43 of those years with Thomas Cassidy as the sole host. KFAC's core airstaff was itself unchanged between 1953 and 1983.
Cord sold KFAC and FM adjunct KFAC-FM 92.3 to former Cleveland, Ohio, mayor Ray T. Miller in 1962. Following Miller's 1966 death, Atlantic States Industries (ASI) purchased the two stations after successfully petitioning the Federal Communications Commission for a waiver to their FM Non-Duplication Rule. ASI continued to own KFAC until 1987, when subsequent ownership dismissed the majority of the tenured airstaff and cancelled most specialty programming in a controversial attempt to modernize. By the time of their separate sales and format changes in 1989, KFAC and KFAC-FM were two of only 41 stations—out of 9,000 commercial U.S. radio stations in operation—that played classical music. The New York Times eulogized KFAC as "a staple of Los Angeles's cultural life for 58 years".
KWKW itself is Southern California's oldest Spanish language radio station, having launched in 1941 at and moving to in 1950, and has been under Lotus ownership since 1962. KWKW's regional Mexican format and call sign moved to from in 1989 following Lotus' acquisition of the former and sale of the latter. Spanish-language broadcasts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, narrated by Jaime Jarrín, carried over to and were a KWKW staple until 2008. KWKW added the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996, a partnership that helped significantly boost the team's visibility in Los Angeles's Hispanic community; the Lakers continued to be with KWKW through 2025. KWKW dropped all music programming in 1997 in favor of talk radio, then flipped to sports radio in 2005 as an ESPN Deportes Radio affiliate, and switched to TUDN Radio in 2019. KWKW is currently the Spanish language flagship for multiple Los Angeles professional sports franchises including the Rams, Clippers, Kings, Angels and the LA Galaxy. From 2000 to 2025, KTMZ in Pomona simulcast KWKW full-time for the eastern portions of the market.
KJS and KTBI (1922–1931) The Bible Institute of Los Angeles signed on station KJS on March 22, 1922, operating from their headquarters at Sixth and Hope Streets. Based on its call sign, the station adopted the slogan "King Jesus Saves". KJS was the second religious broadcast station established in the United States, four months after the Church of the Covenant established WDM in Washington, D.C. Not long after going on air, a 1,000-watt transmitter was scheduled to be put into service in October. As KJS was one of fourteen radio stations in operation in the region, a complex time-share arrangement between all stations to operate at was established with preference given to KHJ, itself recently established by the Los Angeles Times. Consequently, KJS only operated for one hour on Sunday mornings, 45 minutes on Sunday evenings and 30 minutes on Wednesday nights at launch. Programming primarily consisted of church services, including from the institute's affiliated Church of the Open Door, though programs from other churches were also featured along with live musical offerings. Charles E. Fuller, who would later become board chairman of the Bible Institute and host of The Old Fashioned Revival Hour, began his radio career at KJS in 1924.
In August 1925, the station changed its call letters to KTBI to identify the station with The Bible Institute. KTBI's program director in 1927, Herbert G. Tovey, also conducted the institute's women's glee club; the Bible Institute offered a range of music courses to its students. Programming continued to feature the Church of the Open Door, as well as devotionals and a "Jewish Radio Hour", in addition to a daily children's program, Aunt Martha's Children's Hour. The station broadcast on a variety of frequencies—including , (sharing time with KHJ), and —before receiving the assignment in General Order 40 reallocation. KTBI moved to new studios in June 1928 alongside a power increase to . General Order 40 paired the station with another religious outlet: KGEF, the station of controversial evangelist Robert P. Shuler and his Trinity Methodist Church.
KTBI operated on a noncommercial basis. As a result, when the Great Depression hit and donations fell, the station became unsustainable for the institute to operate. While oil magnate Lyman Stewart helped found and finance construction of the institute, he failed to endow it prior to his death, exacerbating their financial crisis. Additionally, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) informed the institute that it preferred religious programs be broadcast over commercially operated stations. In 1931, the Bible Institute sold KTBI for $37,500 (equivalent to $ in ) to the Los Angeles Broadcasting Company. Following a brief period of silence for technical repairs, it relaunched as a commercial outlet on April 30 under the KFAC call sign; (Guide to reading History Cards) the KFAC calls had themselves previously been used between 1922 and 1923 on a short-lived station in Glendale, California, owned by the Glendale Daily Press. Along with the sale, the institute continued to have several programs broadcast over the new KFAC and the time share with KGEF was to be maintained.
A very visible reminder of KJS/KTBI's past existence would soon be constructed by the Bible Institute: two large red "Jesus Saves" neon signs on top of their headquarters next to the former transmission tower. Removed after the building's 1988 demolition, the sign was purchased by Gene Scott and placed on the United Artists Theatre in Los Angeles' downtown (renamed "University Cathedral") and later were moved to Glendale along with the ministry's headquarters. A replica sign exists at the current Biola University campus in La Mirada.
KFAC (1931–1989) Move to Wilshire
The Los Angeles Broadcasting Company was headed up by Errett Lobban Cord, a manufacturer best known for the Auburn and Cord automobile lines, and by O.R. "Ollie" Fuller, a dairy farmer who owned the Los Angeles dealership for Auburn-Cord, Fuller Motors; accordingly, KFAC stood for "Fuller-Auburn-Cord". Cord and Fuller also had purchased KFVD in Culver City, based at Hal Roach Studios; both they and KFAC would remain at their original sites until both relocated to the Fuller Motors dealership in Wilshire Center, directly adjacent to the Wilshire Community Church. KFAC broadcast a live three-hour program on April 12, 1932, to celebrate the grand opening of the new studios, with on-air talent from competing stations as special guests. As the studios were located in the dealership's fifth floor penthouse, large radio towers were erected on the roof but were purely for display and advertisement purposes as KFAC's actual transmitter site was moved to Los Angeles' Crestview neighborhood. O.R. Fuller and his company went bankrupt prior to completion of the studios in 1932, prompting Cord to acquire KFAC and KFVD outright.
In the wake of the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times ran stories on March 21, 1934, regarding a kidnapping threat made against E.L. Cord's children. In response, Cord secretly fled with his immediate family to the United Kingdom, the news of his fleeing would not be made known until a New York Times story that May 30, when a company associate only would say that Cord "would remain away for an indefinite period". The full reason for this sudden action was never truly disclosed. KFVD would be spun off to Standard Broadcasting Co. for $50,000 on July 15, 1936, and moved out of the dealership two years later. Cord divested his automotive holdings, which were merged into the Aviation Corporation in 1933, to separate interests in 1937 for $2.5 million.
Starting in 1932, KFAC began broadcasting unlimited time through a series of authorizations under special temporary authority (STA); this arrangement became permanent in January 1933 when the FRC deleted KGEF's license over Shuler's controversial views following a series of failed appeals. This would soon extend to 24-hour broadcasting for KFAC starting on March 8, 1935, joining KGFJ, which broadcast around the clock starting in 1927; both stations preceded WNEW in New York City, which started unlimited broadcasting that August 6. Between 1933 and 1935, the Los Angeles Herald-Express was affiliated with KFAC, though it held no ownership interest; the alliance ended when the newspaper bought KTM in Santa Monica and KELW of Burbank. The station was almost forced to share its frequency again when, in January 1936, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing examiner approved an application by Los Angeles city councilmember and real estate operator Will H. Kindig for a new shared-time station with KFAC (which would have been renewed for half-time only), saying the proposed Kindig station would increase media diversity in Los Angeles; the FCC broadcast division, however, reversed the examiner's ruling that July. When the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA) was enacted in 1941, KFAC moved to .
Whoa Bill and a springboard to stardom
Shortly after relaunching as KFAC, on July 30, 1931, an afternoon children's radio program titled the "Whoa Bill" Club debuted, hosted by Harry Jackson with the alternative rural title The Keeper of the Pig, carrying over a show he had previously hosted for four years on KFWB. Sponsored by Bullock's department store, the "Whoa Bill" Club aired every weekday afternoon at 5:30 p.m. for the next 20 years, and found lasting success when Nick Nelson took over as main emcee in 1941 under the name "Uncle Whoa Bill". At its peak, the Bullock's "Whoa Bill" Club boasted a membership of 50,000 fans—known as "Whoa Billers"—in 1944. The show also broadcast live performances every Friday afternoon for a live studio audience of children under the age of 12, Nelson himself also performed weekly puppet shows at Bullock's on Saturday afternoons. Among the child actors who performed on the "Whoa Bill" Club, bobby soxer Louise Erickson found the most fame, having started her professional career at age seven, cast as a fairy princess. Publicist/talent agent Aaron "Red" Doff, who managed the careers of Mickey Rooney, Doris Day, Liberace and Frankie Laine, also was a recurring child actor on the program.