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XEPRS-AM

XEPRS-AM, known as XX 1090 (formerly XX Sports Radio), is an American-operated sports talk radio station targeting English-speaking listeners in San Diego. Its signal originates from Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico, and it broadcasts in English out of studios in San Diego. XEPRS is the broadcast home of the San Diego Padres and University of San Diego Basketball, and is also the syndicated home for Jim Rome. The station also used to air games for the Anaheim Ducks and San Diego State Aztecs Baseball and Basketball. It is the station that was immortalized along with Wolfman Jack in the George Lucas movie American Graffiti.

History

XERB: The Mighty 1090

1090 AM started out as XERB.

In the early 1960s, Bob Smith (a.k.a. Wolfman Jack) was living in Del Rio, Texas and appearing on the "border blaster" AM radio station XERF. After several violent incidents at XERF's transmitter, Smith and partner Marvin Kosofsky (referred to as 'Mo Burton' in Wolfman Jack's autobigraphy) purchased daytime-only AM station KUXL in 1964 in Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota. Smith relocated in Minnesota, and never appeared as Wolfman Jack on KUXL, but rather worked as the station's general manager, while shipping Wolfman shows on tape to XERF.

In 1965, Smith made an arrangement with the U.S. agent for XERB in Baja California. Smith began selling ad time on the Mighty 1090 and recording Wolfman Jack shows for his new affiliate. Initially, Smith controlled the station's affairs from Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota, and in 1966, Smith, along with fellow KUXL staffers Ralph Hull (a.k.a. Preacher Paul Anthony and The Nazz) and Art Hoehn (a.k.a. Fat Daddy Washington) relocated to Southern California to run XERB full-time.

Wolfman and his associates were able to make the station turn a huge profit by selling programming to radio proselytizers in 15-30 minute blocks. Because they had such a large following and made so much money, the radio evangelists were never too hesitant about paying huge fees for airtime.

As if being on one border blaster wasn't enough, Wolfman began broadcasting pre-recorded shows on three different Mexican stations at different times of the day, XERB, XERF, & XEG 1050 kHz in Monterrey, Nuevo León.

According to his biography, by 1971 Wolfman was making a profit of almost $50,000 a month. The Mexican company executives that leased XERB noticed this and got greedy. They wanted to throw him out and make all the money themselves. So, the owners bribed Mexican officials into politically squeezing Wolfman off the air. The Mexican government did this by passing a law that stated there could be no more Pentecostal or religious programming on Mexican airwaves. Since XERB made most of its profits from airtime sold to the prayer-cloth preachers there was no way Wolfman could continue to make payments to the owners each month. “That was it." Wolfman remembers, "In one stroke they cleaned out 80 percent of all the money we were expecting to make." So, he and business partner Marvin Kosofsky had to turn control of the station back over to the Mexican owners.

XEPRS: The Soul Express

With Wolfman out of the way, the station owners tried to duplicate his successful formula. Since Wolfman owned the call letters, XERB, they changed the letters to XEPRS-AM and programmed soul music, calling the station “The Soul Express.” Wolfy still broadcast for over a year while under the new ownership, but left soon afterwards. April 4, 1972 was the last day Wolfman ever held sway over the Mexican border airwaves. Taped versions of the Wolfman could be heard on the station around 1980.

Four months later George Lucas and crew would film Wolfman on location at station KRE/AM in Berkeley, CA playing himself for the film, American Graffiti. Although the movie shows him broadcasting live from California, the Brinkley Act made this impossible. Artistic license was taken with the subject material for the sake of the script.

Soon afterwards, the Mexican government repealed their own law and put the preachers back on the air. But, without the Wolfman howling over the airwaves, the station never even remotely saw the success that Wolfman Jack had achieved.

The call letters XERB have since been assigned to a repeater station for Sol Esotero in Cozumel.

The Mighty 1090/XX Sports Radio/XX 1090

With XTRA Sports 690, a ClearChannel radio station based out of San Diego sold to their Los Angeles counterpart in December 2001, several of the on-air talent were released, including Bill Werndl, John Kentera, and others. Filling the void of what would have been a lack of a sports station focusing on San Diego, former head of programming of XTRA Sports 690 John Lynch formed Broadcast Company of the Americas, and launched The Mighty 1090 in March 2003 with most of the on-air talent released from ClearChannel after the sale of XETRA-AM.

Beginning February 1, 2006, XEPRS started simulcasting its sports talk programming on a Mighty 1090 sister station, XHPRS 105.7 (La Pantera) out of Matamoros Jaramillo. This operation is aimed at bettering the station's signals to Eastern San Diego County and other California listeners. The station then became known as XX (Double X) Sports Radio.

The company responsible for the station's programming and sales, Broadcast Company of the Americas, was founded by John Lynch, a businessman and father of the Denver Broncos defensive back of the same name. Lynch was also once the owner of XETRA, a/k/a "The Mighty 690"; while he was there, he brought Lee Hamilton to San Diego sports radio.

The station also includes news updates produced by fellow San Diego television station KUSI, whose owner, Mike McKinnon, and XX Sports Radio owner John Lynch Sr. have a personal relationship.

On April 15, 2008 at 9:00 AM, XX Sports Radio stopped broadcasting programming to 105.7 FM and became an oldies radio station, branded as "105.7 The Walrus." This was the first FM oldies station in San Diego since XHOCL-FM flipped to a Spanish language format on September 1, 2005. As a result of the simulcast's break-up (except for Padres games), XX Sports Radio was renamed as XX 1090.

Program Schedule

Weekday Schedule

5:00 - 9:00 a.m. "The Scott & B.R. Show"
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. The Jim Rome Show
12:00 - 3:00 p.m. John Kentera and Joe Tutino
3:00 - 7:00 p.m. "Too Much Show" with Philly Billy Werndl and Darren Smith
7:00 - 10:00 p.m. Dan Patrick
10:00 p.m. - 5:00 a.m. Sporting News Radio

Weekday Schedule (when the Padres play a nighttime home game)

5:00 - 9:00 a.m. "The Scott & B.R. Show"
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. "The Jim Rome Show"
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. John Kentera and Joe Tutino
1:00 - 4:00 p.m. "Too Much Show"
4:00 - 6:00 p.m. "Miller Lite Padres BP" with Darren Smith, Randy Jones, and Phil Nevin

(Programming from 6pm-12midnight also airs on 105.7 FM.)

6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Pregame show
7:00 - 10:00 p.m. Baseball game
10:00 p.m. - 12 a.m. "Padres Postgame Show" with Coach John Kentera

External links

References

Border Radio by Fowler, Gene and Crawford, Bill. Texas Monthly Press, Austin. 1987 ISBN 0-87719-066-6
Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA, by Gilder, Eric. - "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu Press, Romania. 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6
"Wolman Jack." Kip Pullman's American Graffiti Page.http://www.geocities.com/kippullman
Wolfman Jack and the Border Blasters Audio Documentary by Everett, Rick. Self-published, Victoria, BC, Canada. 2001