KQLZ (defunct)

KQLZ (defunct)

"KQLZ", "Pirate Radio 100.3" was a United States, Los Angeles, California area FM radio station that broadcast from March 17, 1989 through April 2, 1993. The station was launched with much attention from both radio and music industry trade publications.

KQLZ 100.3FM was owned by Westwood One, one of the largest producers and distributors of radio programming in the U.S.A. KQLZ was one of three radio stations the company purchased in 1989 in an attempt to expand its business to include radio station ownership. Westwood One paid $56 Million USD in early 1989 for 100.3FM in Los Angeles, then known as "KIQQ-FM" with the branding "K-LITE". In addition, the company hired noted New York City based radio programmer and on air personality Scott Shannon as the new station's program director and morning drive time host. The station paid Mr. Shannon a then industry high yearly salary of $2.3 million USD.

After briefly registering successful ratings during the stations first six months, KQLZ soon experienced ratings too low to bill advertising rates high enough to sustain operation costs. Scott Shannon was fired on February 13, 1991, and the station tried various format adjustments to help raise advertising revenue. In 1993, Westwood One sold KQLZ at a loss for only $40 million USD, $16 million less than what the company paid four years earlier. For these reasons, KQLZ is often cited by many in the radio industry as one of the most high profile failures in the history of commercial radio in the United States.

Contrary to its brand management based moniker, the original KQLZ on 100.3FM wasn't an actual pirate radio station. KQLZ was fully licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, a regulatory agency that oversees telecommunications and radio frequency communications in the United States.

Despite its commercial failings, by 1999 a nostalgia for "Pirate Radio 100.3 FM" developed among people who were teens and early twenties in age during the stations early era. A "100.3 FM KQLZ Los Angeles, Pirate Radio" tribute website was started in April 1999 at www.KQLZ.com. In 2001, a second webmaster re-launched KQLZ radio as a fan produced automated internet radio station at www.kqlz.org. The format of the commercial free internet station emphasizes heavy metal music as played on the original FM radio station between 1989 and 1991 as well as much of the imaging.