KDIZ (AM)

KDIZ (1570 kHz "Freedom 1570") is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Golden Valley, Minnesota, and serving the Twin Cities radio market. It is owned by the Salem Media Group and it airs a conservative talk radio format. KDIZ's radio studios are on Cliff Road near Minnesota State Highway 77 and Interstate 35E in Eagan.

By day, KDIZ transmits 4,000 watts; because 1570 AM is a Mexican clear channel frequency, KDIZ reduces power at night to 220 watts to avoid interference. The signal is non-directional at all times. The transmitter is on Lilac Drive North in Golden Valley, near Minnesota State Highway 100.

Salem Media owns two talk stations in the Twin Cities: WWTC carries mostly programs from the co-owned Salem Radio Network. Meanwhile, KDIZ carries nationally syndicated hosts from Westwood One (Vince Coglianese, Red Eye Radio and Mark Levin) and CBS Radio (Dana Loesch) as well as some Salem hosts (Charlie Kirk, Chris Stigall, Jay Sekulow and Eric Metaxas).

In the fall, KDIZ airs St. John's University college football games. Weekends feature shows on health, money, guns, veterans, golf, technology and cars, some of which are paid brokered programming. Most hours begin with Townhall News, similar to WWTC.

The station signed on the air on October 27, 1961. The original call sign was KUXL and it had a long history of being a Christian radio station. In the 1960s and 1970s, KUXL played urban gospel and R&B music, among other programming, prior to becoming a full-time religious station.

For much of its history, the station was a daytimer, required to go off the air at night because it broadcast on a Mexican clear channel frequency. Its studios and offices were originally located at 4820 Olson Highway in Golden Valley. The operations later moved to Duluth Street. The transmitter and antenna were first co-located with KQRS (1440 AM) on Minnesota State Highway 100 and later on the station's own tower, a block away from the Duluth Street studios, next to Highway 100.

In the mid-1960s, the station was operated by Marvin Kosofsky. Kosofsky hired Bob Smith (a.k.a. Wolfman Jack), who relocated from Del Rio, Texas, to run the station with a mostly R&B format. Also at KUXL at this time were Art Hoehn (a.k.a. Fat Daddy Washington) and former KDWB personality Ralph Hull (a.k.a. Preacher Paul Anthony and The Nazz). It was this trio of broadcasters who took control of "border blaster" station XERB, in Baja California, in 1965. They operated the "Big X" from Minneapolis initially, then relocated to Southern California in 1966.

KUXL sponsored numerous concerts by such artists as Ike and Tina Turner, the Four Tops, B. B. King, Solomon Burke, the Temptations, Jimmy Reed, Jr. Walker, the Impressions and Fats Domino.