KLBS – Los Banos Radio Station

Nº OF MEETING: XVII

KLBS 1330 AM is a radio station licensed to cover the area of Los Banos, California, and is currently owned by Ethnic Radio of Los Banos, Inc., which is part of the Batista Vieira Group. It was initiallyowned by Los Banos Broadcasting Company, then by John R. McAdam from 1964 and byEthnic Radio, Inc. from 1982.

It broadcastsglobal Portuguese music, with news and information in Portuguese about the communities and forthe communities. KLBS and its partner KSQQ cover the entire Portuguese community of the San Joaquin Valley.Founded in 1961, it began broadcastingon May 1 of that year, with a license restricting it to daytime broadcasting. Initially, its weekly schedule included 8 hours on agriculture, 5 hours in Spanish and 7 hours in Portuguese. A few years later and throughout the 1970s, the Spanish program was increased to 12 weekly hours and the Portuguese one to 16.

In 1985, it started to implement a number of proceduresto broadcast 24 hours a day, a process that wascompleted in December 1987.

Since the transfer of the broadcasting license toEthnic Radio of Los Banos, Inc., owned by the Vieira family, in 1987, 90% of the programming is in Portuguese, with KLBS being the only station in that state where Portuguese is the dominant language.