KFNN is a commercial business news formatted radio station licensed to Mesa, Arizona, broadcasting from studios located in North Scottsdale, Arizona, on 1510 AM, and simulcast on 105.3 FM. KFNN is owned by CRC Broadcasting Company, Inc., headed by Ronald Cohen and Brian DuBose, which also owns KPSF and KXPS, both located in the Palm Springs, California area, and a financial expo company called Financial Fest. KFNN began airing primarily nationally syndicated content, and now has an extensive lineup of local and national money related programs. They have been serving the greater Phoenix community as a business/financial station since 1988. They are distinguished as the first full-time financial format of its kind in the U.S. 1510 AM is a United States clear-channel frequency. WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee is the dominant Class A station on this frequency. KFNN must reduce nighttime power in order to prevent interference to WLAC's nighttime skywave signal.
History
Maricopa County Broadcasters, owned by Sheldon Engel, built KALF and signed the station on November 2, 1962. In 1970, it was relaunched as KMND, simulcasting an easy listening music format with KMND-FM. KMND-AM-FM was acquired by the Dwight-Karma Broadcasting Corporation in 1971; both stations became KDKB, playing an Album Oriented Rock format. In 1978, the simulcast was broken and 1510 kHz changed formats to oldies. The call letters were changed to KDJQ. In 1980, the format at AM KDJQ changed to new wave music for a brief time. The station became KNTS on November 6, 1984. On August 23, 1986, the station changed its call sign to KJAA, then on December 12, 1988 to the current KFNN.
Station signal
The station's transmitter and towers at the time of the change of call letters were located in Mesa, Arizona, its FCC listed city of license to this day. It was originally a 10,000-watt daytime signal until 1991, when the station towers were relocated to North Phoenix. From there the signal was authorized to increase to 22,000 watts daytime, and was broadcasting day and night. In 2013, they began simulcasting on FM, through translator K257CD on 99.3 MHz. In 2017, CRC changed K257CD's signal source to its new KQFN sports station, with a new translator, K287BX on 105.3 MHz, replacing it as KFNN's FM outlet.
Business and financial format
Along with two other original partners, Ronald Cohen began the station's format with largely syndicated format from Bloomberg and other radio networks, but soon developed a large group of live, local programming throughout the week. Don McDonald's financial planning program was one of the first major national shows broadcast on the station, along with Ken and Daria Dolan, who featured a money and investment related program syndicated from the WOR Radio Network. KFNN introduced a live morning show titled Business for Breakfast with Ken Morgan as its host. Morgan has been a long time morning show host and station manager, with much of his career spent in Cleveland, Ohio. They currently feature a mix of live, local financial, business, and real estate content, along with syndicated radio hosts like Clark Howard, Gary Kaltbaum, and Ray Lucia, all of whom have had a long presence on the station.
Recent format changes
As of the first quarter of 2011, KFNN re-branded its station name from 1510 KFNN, Financial Newsradio, to Money Radio 1510 & 99.3 FM. The station's brand was changed to reflect the broader nature of program content that relates to all matters money. Expansion of the Money Radio brand has moved into Palm Springs, California, as of March 2012 under the call letters KPSF. By 2019, KFNN was airing a mix of business/financial shows and conservative and libertarian-leaning political talk.
