Las Vegas radio is getting a shakeup, and Kemp Broadcasting is at the center of it. Starting Tuesday, September 1st, 106.9 KVGQ will drop its classic hip hop format and launch as a conservative news/talk station, picking up several nationally syndicated shows that suddenly found themselves without a home in the market.
The move comes after Audacy announced that 840 KXNT, the market’s longtime news/talk outlet, would go dark on August 31st due to a lease dispute over its towers. That left shows like The Glenn Beck Program and The Mark Levin Show searching for a new signal, and Kemp Broadcasting saw an opportunity to consolidate its position in the format.
The company already operates 670 KMZQ as a conservative talk station, and rather than compete head-on with a new entrant, Kemp decided to build out a two-station approach instead. KVGQ will lean national, while KMZQ shifts toward a more locally driven identity.
How the Deal Came Together
Marty Basch, Executive Vice President of Kemp Broadcasting and Digital Outdoor, said the timeline moved unusually fast once KXNT’s exit became public.
“It was a quick turnaround,” said Basch. “The other station was going off the air basically, and they pretty much rolled out that the end of the station would be on the 31st of August. There were a number of shows that, through their press releases, weren’t picking up a home in the Vegas market.”
Because so many shows lacked a landing spot, Kemp moved quickly to lock down names that would otherwise have gone dark in the market. Basch described the calculation as straightforward once the opportunity became clear.
“We have a chance here to pretty much own the talk format in the market between the two stations,” Basch said. “They chose not to pick up Glenn Beck. They chose not to pick up Mark Levin. Dana Loesch, they weren’t picking up.”
Once those shows became available, Kemp built a lineup around them rather than starting from scratch. Basch also pointed to internal moves the company made to strengthen the schedule further.
“If we can pick up Glenn Beck, I can take from my AM station, from KMZQ, I can bring Clay Travis and Buck Sexton over,” Basch said. “We could pick up Hugh Hewitt from Salem, pull in Mark Levin, and then the Dana show with Dr. Dahlia, and at that point we have one of the stronger lineups in the country, we think, as far as talk goes.”
That confidence traces back to decades of experience in the market. Basch has deep roots in Las Vegas radio, having served as general manager of KXNT under CBS Radio between 2001 and 2008.
“I understand the talk business. I understand the radio business,” the Kemp Broadcasting executive shared. “I’ve been in the radio business for almost 40 years now in Las Vegas.”
A Local-National Split Across Two Stations
Kemp’s strategy hinges on differentiating its two talk outlets rather than letting them overlap. KMZQ will keep hosts like Steve Sanchez and Kevin Wall, along with Wayne Allyn Root, all of whom Basch describes as embedded in the local market despite being nationally syndicated. A new addition, Tom Letizia and his show Middle Ground, joins the AM lineup after the elections.
Meanwhile, KVGQ will carry the bulk of the national programming, including Beck, Levin, Hewitt, and the Travis-Sexton pairing. Basch believes the split gives Kemp an edge that Audacy’s KXNT never fully built.
“I’ll have that local input, that local flair,” Basch said. “Along with the national news that we run at the top of the hour, I’ll also run local news. I do local traffic and then I also do local sports as well.”
Selling the two stations as a package presents its own challenge, though Basch remains optimistic. Because Kemp operates independently rather than through a larger corporate structure, decisions moved without layers of approval slowing things down.
“We don’t have to go to corporate and get approval to do these different things,” Basch said. “It’s really getting the staff together and sitting down and brainstorming.”
Basch also framed the shift as a way to protect jobs rather than cut them. Unlike companies facing budget shortfalls that lead to layoffs, Kemp’s expansion adds responsibility, and in some cases hours, for existing staff.
“This just gives maybe some more responsibilities to a few different department heads,” Basch said. “But that’s also an important part.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.