KXO operates with 830 watts daytime and 1,000 watts at night. It is a Class C station, so its signal is limited to the Imperial Valley. The transmitter site is off West Villa Avenue.[2]
KXO is the oldest station in the Imperial Valley, and is probably the oldest in any community between San Diego and Phoenix. It was first licensed, as KGEN, to E. R. Irey and F. M. Bowles on January 7, 1927.[3] The original call letters were randomly assigned from an alphabetic roster of available call signs.
In 1963, the governments of the U.S. and Mexico agreed to give El Centro two TV stations, channel 7 and channel 9, whose signals would include parts of Mexico. KXO, Inc. received permission from the Federal Communications Commission to build a TV station, KXO-TV (channel 7). A TV station in Yuma, Arizona, KIVA (channel 11), worked to block the competing stations, saying there was not enough economic activity in the region to support three commercial TV stations. KECY-TV (channel 9) eventually made it on the air in December 1968, but KXO-TV never did. Channel 7 finally came on the air in 1996, under the ownership of Entravision Communications, as KVYE.
Over the years, KXO featured several different programming formats. The station has had news and weather sharing partnerships with television stations KECY-TV and KSWT. Some on-air personalities and newscasters have also been heard on KXO and the TV stations.
