KMRB AM 1430

A broadcast AM station licensed to San Gabriel, California, operating at 1430 kHz and serving the Greater Los Angeles area with Cantonese-language programming. The station is owned and operated by Multicultural Broadcasting and holds one of the longer broadcast histories in Southern California. The station first signed on in August 1942 under the call letters KWKW, licensed as a 1,000-watt daytime outlet by the Southern California Broadcasting Company with a community format focused on Pasadena. Programming during those years was eclectic, incorporating foreign-language content in Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish, and the station sponsored events including a Miss KWKW beauty pageant and Pacific Coast Professional Football League broadcasts. In February 1950, following a sale to John H. Poole, the station took the call sign KALI. Ownership changed several times over subsequent decades: Consolidated Broadcasting Company acquired it in 1951, Tele-Broadcasters Inc. purchased it in 1956, and the station expanded to 5,000 watts with nighttime authorization in 1959. By the late 1950s, KALI broadcast more than 100 hours per week of Spanish-language programming and 55 hours aimed at Black listeners, transitioning to a fully Spanish-format station by 1960. In 1994, Multicultural Broadcasting purchased the station and converted it to its current Chinese-language format, with Cantonese as the primary broadcast language. The station rebranded as KMRB in 1999.