On weekends, KTIE airs specialty shows on real estate, pets, guns, money and health, many of which are paid brokered programming. One local program on weekends is "Firing Line Radio" with host Phillip Naman, devoted to firearms and recreational shooting. KTIE carries Los Angeles Rams games during the NFL season.
History
Early years
The station was first licensed on February 10, 1925, as KFWC, to Lawrence E. Wall and C. S. Myers in Upland, California.[3] It was the first radio station in the Inland Empire.[4] In 1926, the station moved to San Bernardino,[5] and the call letters were changed to KFXM on September 24, 1929.[6] A San Bernardino transmitter site was on the summit of Mount San Bernardino, about 25 miles (40 km) east of the city. KFXM was received across most of Southern California, including Los Angeles and San Diego.
Following his service during WWII, Ernie Ford was a radio announcer at KFXM. He was assigned to host an early morning country music disc jockey program, Bar Nothin' Ranch Time. To differentiate himself, he created the personality of "Tennessee Ernie", a wild, madcap, exaggerated hillbilly. He became popular in the area and was soon hired away by Pasadena's KXLA radio.
From 1959 to 1985, KFXM was a popular Top 40 station in the San Bernardino/Riverside radio market. KFXM was home to popular disc jockeys such as Larry Lujack, Lyle Kilgore, Chuck Doherty, and Bob Griffin in the early 1960s. In 1962, 1290 KMEN (now Catholic station KKDD) began playing Top 40 hits and beat the former No. 1 KFXM in the ratings.
But in 1965, KFXM reclaimed the top spot with a DJ lineup of Don Elliot, Al Anthony, Jockey Jon (Jon Badeaux), Barry Boyd, and Gene Gleeson. An AFTRA strike in 1968 prompted KFXM to hire a new lineup of DJs, collectively known as the "Jones Boys" (as all of their on-air names had the surname Jones, hiding their real identities from the union), which kept the station running. Once the dispute was resolved, the DJs chose new on-air names.
Maintaining the leadership role in the Inland Empire into the 1970s were disc jockeys Jhani Kaye, Doug Collins, Don McCoy, Bruce Chandler, Chris Roberts, and Bob B. Blue. In the 80s, the station continued to succeed with Craig Powers, and then Rich Watson as PD and air personalities, Dave Murphy, Ed Mann, Jason McQueen (Michael Anglado), and Terry Shea, all of whom landed gigs at Los Angeles metro stations after their stints at KFXM.
In the early 1990s, the station's call sign switched to KRSO. In 1992, upon final sign-off of the beautiful music format on 97.5 FM KDUO in Riverside (now KLYY), the station referred listeners to KRSO as a similar format to what they had heard on KDUO.[9] However, it was only a short time later that KRSO flipped to an all-talk format, using NBC Radio News and continuing to air NBC's Talknet programming at night.
In 1996, the station was acquired by EXCL Communications, which switched to a Spanish-languageReligious format, using the call letters KSZZ.[10]
Salem Communications
In 2001, Salem Communications bought the station for $7 million, returning the format to talk and changing the call sign to KRLH.[11] The station began carrying the line up of Salem Radio Network talk shows. Two years later, the call letters switched again, this time to KTIE for Talk of the Inland Empire.
On April 23, 2012, KTIE was re-branded to AM 590 The Answer.[12] Most Salem Communications talk stations now call themselves "The Answer".
