KROP

KROP
City	Brawley, California
Broadcast area	Imperial Valley
Frequency	1300 kHz
Programming
Affiliations	Westwood One, Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network
Ownership
Owner	The Voice of International Christian Evangelism, Inc.
History
First air date	November 1946
Last air date	August 27, 2018
Former call signs	KROP (1946-1998); KKSC (1998-2001)
Technical information
Facility ID	63470
Class	B
Power	1,000 watts day; 500 watts night
Transmitter coordinates	33°0′40″N 115°31′16″W / 33.01111°N 115.52111°W
Links
Website	krop.info

KROP (1300 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Brawley, California, and serving the Imperial Valley.

The station had aired a classic country format until January 1, 2018. It had also carried Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games in season. It has been continuously off the air since August 27, 2018.

History[]

The station first signed on the air in November 1946.^[1] It was a CBS Radio Network affiliate.

KROP had a music format from the 1950s to the early 1980s, when it switched to a Talk radio format. In 1995, it switched to a country music format. This lasted until 1998, when the station became KKSC, "ESPN 1300", a sports radio station affiliated with ESPN Radio. Though the station's audience grew with the sports format, KKSC had trouble selling the format to advertisers, rendering the station dependent on the profits of sister station 96.1 KSIQ.

Commonwealth Communications purchased the station from Stodelle Broadcasting in 1999; two years later, the station changed back to KROP and began playing a classic country format provided by Westwood One's Real Country service. Cherry Creek Radio bought the station in 2003. In 2010, LarDog Communications, LLC. purchased KROP, installed new state of the art broadcasting equipment and changed the format back to talk radio.

After KSIQ was moved into the San Diego market, Cherry Creek Radio shut down KROP in April 2010, as the lack of an FM sister station made it more difficult for the station to compete in the Imperial Valley radio market. The station was sold, and returned on the air when the sale was completed in August 2010. Brawley High School Wildcat Football was broadcast via the World Wide Web.^[2]

On August 1, 2014, KROP returned to classic country, citing low advertising revenues for the talk radio format.^[3]

It was reported on January 1, 2018, that KROP went off the air. The phone numbers for both KROP and its owner, LarDog, have been disconnected.^[4] The website is also not available. After briefly resuming operations in August, a lightning strike put the station off the air on August 27.

On June 11, 2019, LarDog filed to donate KROP to The Voice of International Christian Evangelism, which owns KGBA-AM-FM in Holtville.^[5] The donation was consummated on August 12, 2019.