KHJ Radio in Los Angeles, California was one of America's most formidable Top 40 radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s as 93 KHJ. It has been known as La Ranchera since 1989.

KHJ went on the air in 1922 with a frequency of 930 kHz. This was at a time when several stations shared one frequency for short periods of time each day.

Originally owned by the Los Angeles Times newspaper, it was purchased by Don Lee, a well-known local automobile dealer who also owned KFRC in San Francisco. The Don Lee stations eventually numbered 21. In 1949, the entire broadcasting company, including KHJ and other stations, was merged into RKO General. The call letters were said to stand for "Kindness, Happiness, and Joy". Famous entertainers of the period, such as George Burns and Gracie Allen, appeared on KHJ. At one point the station employed its own 50-piece orchestra to back up musical guests. In fact, in an historic 1931 broadcast (which partially survives today), KHJ introduced the world to an up-and-coming singer named Bing Crosby. Pat Weaver (the president of NBC, creator of The Today Show and The Tonight Show, and the father of actress Sigourney Weaver) worked there as an announcer.

In the mid-1960s, programming consultant Bill Drake was brought in to craft its new top-40 format. He created a very tight sound built on a restrictive playlist, and tight controls on what was said by the announcers (although a few superstar announcers, such as Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele were allowed to develop their own on-air personalities). Also part of the format, which came to be known as "Boss Radio", was a package of memorable jingles performed by the Johnny Mann Singers. "Boss Radio" subsequently spread throughout the nation and brought high ratings and acclaim to stations such as KFRC in San Francisco, CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, and WRKO in Boston.

The format brought high ratings to the station through the late 1970s until FM radio became the dominant way to broadcast popular music. In September of 1980 KHJ became a Country music station which lasted until 1983 when it switched to an Adult Contemporary format. In 1984 KHJ tried a "full service" Top 40 format but by late 1985 it went to late '50s and early '60s oldies.

KHJ signed off the air as such on January 31, 1986. That evening, many disc jockeys from throughout KHJ's heyday of Boss Radio (including Robert W. Morgan, M.G. Kelly, Bobby Ocean, and Boss Radio-era Program Director Ron Jacobs) reunited for a farewell broadcast, playing the songs that had made KHJ a popular AM station in the 1960s and 1970s. At the stroke of midnight, the station changed its call letters to KRTH to match those of its FM sister station, KRTH-FM. It continued to simulcast KRTH-FM's oldies format until 1989.

RKO General was embroiled by unethical conduct at its television stations dating back to allegations of reciprocal trade practices at KHJ's television sister, KHJ-TV channel 9 (now KCAL-TV) in the 1960s. It was eventually ruled unfit to be a broadcast licensee and forced by the FCC to sell off their broadcast properties. In the summer of 1989, KRTH AM and FM were sold to Beasley Broadcasting, who then turned around and sold the AM station to Liberman Broadcasting. It became a full-time Spanish-language station, adopting the call letters KKHJ in honor of its historic calls.

Unfortunately, soon after Liberman took over, it discovered that it could not use the Spanish pronunciation of its call letters on-air. This was because pronoucing the first two letters in Spanish (kah-kah) sounded similar to the Spanish slang for feces. As a result, whenever the call letters were used, they were pronounced in English. This proved somewhat awkward over a decade, so the station collected letters from listeners and community listeners and lobbied the FCC to allow the station to drop one of its "K's." With few exceptions, the FCC has only granted four-letter callsigns since the early 1930s. However, under the circumstances, the FCC allowed the station to return to its original three-letter calls, KHJ. The change became official on March 15, 2000. Meanwhile, the former callsign was assigned to an FM station in American Samoa ^*, which also uses the legendary L.A. station's "93KHJ" on-air name.

As of 2005, KHJ continues airing as a Spanish-language station, owned by Lieberman Broadcasting, operating at 5 kW.

An unrelated low-powered FM station in Madras, Oregon, KHJA-LP 102.1 FM ^* is a tribute to the 1960s and 70s era KHJ, using the L.A. station's vintage logo, jingles, and "Boss Radio" slogans.

External links

• La Ranchera official site
• Reel Radio KHJ 1931 Exhibit (one of the earliest known surviving sound checks of any radio station)
• Boss Radio Forever
• Inside Boss Radio (commercial)
• 93KHJ in Pago Pago, American Samoa

Radio stations in Los Angeles