The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also investigated the incident; in 2016, it designated the renewal of KDND's license for hearing, questioning whether the station had operated in the public interest.
On September 25, 1945, Lincoln Dellar, who had signed on KXOA (1470 AM) on May 20 of that year,[1] applied to the FCC to build a new FM radio station in Sacramento, originally specifying 95.9 MHz as the frequency.
[6][7] However, the Rhodes group did not materialize, and three months later, Fuqua filed to sell the station to a consortium consisting of Drake-Chenault, a national program syndicator, and Brown Broadcasting, which owned KGB-AM-FM in San Diego.
[13] Art Schroeder, the KXOA-FM program director during this period, credited the "safe" approach with attracting many listeners not wishing to hear punk rock.
[17] In the early 1990s, KXOA-FM's popularity began to wane following the launch of competitors in KYMX and KGBY; ratings fell by roughly half from 1990 to 1993.
[28] At noon on July 14, 1998, Entercom made a move that general manager John Geary admitted should have occurred a year prior and flipped KXOA to Top 40/CHR as 107.9 The End with new KDND call letters.
[28][29] In January 1999, the KXOA call letters, as well as the Arrow format and branding, were recycled by the former KRAK-FM at 93.7 MHz, replacing an ailing classic country station.
The Sacramento Bee released audio clips from the morning show indicating that the disc jockeys were aware of the death of Matthew Carrington by water intoxication.
[38][39][40] On January 15, 2007, the front page of KDND's website was replaced with a message from John Geary, the station's vice-president and general manager, expressing sympathies to Strange's family and announcing that the Morning Rave program would be taken off the air indefinitely.
"[42] However, Deborah Hoffman of KXTV reported that former prosecutor Bill Portanova commented that "the radio station has some serious liability exposure", due in part to widespread news coverage of the Matthew Carrington case two years earlier.
[37] On January 17, the Los Angeles Times reported that Sacramento Sheriff John McGinness had ordered homicide detectives to investigate whether a crime had been committed.
[46] In August, two of the KDND DJs, Adam "Lukas" Cox and Steve Maney, sued Entercom over a wrongful termination of their contract.
Shortly prior to the start of jury selection in the trial, KDND began to tease that it would be "saying goodbye" on September 8, 2009, leading to speculation that the station was planning to drop The End in favor of a different format or shut down entirely; however, it was later revealed that the campaign was actually for a new commercial-free Tuesdays promotion.
[53][54] The Media Action Center, a watchdog organization founded by former producer Sue Wilson, filed a petition to deny against KDND's license when it was up for renewal in 2013.
Entercom stated that "it is in the company's best interests to voluntarily turn in the KDND license to facilitate the timely FCC approvals for the planned combination with CBS Radio".
[60] KDND's format and The End branding were re-located to sister station KUDL at 9:00 a.m. on February 6 (the last song before the move was "Scars to Your Beautiful" by Alessia Cara).
[62] As the station's final program, a farewell special aired at 11:30 p.m. on the 7th, hosted by former afternoon DJ Chris K, playing music from the End's 18-year history.
The FCC ruled that Stolz's arguments had no merit and that he was not a party of interest in the dispute between Media Action Center and Entercom that led to the license revocation hearing.
[66] The FCC returned the 107.9 frequency on which KDND was licensed to operate to the agency's inventory of unused channels, to be put up for auction to the highest bidder.
[69][70] KSTE-FM began broadcasts on May 4, 2022, using the former KDND transmission facility at Elverta;[71] following a month of stunting, the new station would launch a hot adult contemporary format on June 8, 2022,[72] and subsequently change its call sign to KZIS.