This Friday is a very special day at Red River Radio (RRR). It was 40 years ago, on Thursday, December 20, 1984, when KDAQ 89.9 FM in Shreveport, officially went on the air – becoming the area’s first commercial-free broadcast radio station affiliated with National Public Radio (NPR).
Today, KDAQ is the flagship station with five other stations and a translator in the Red River Radio network. The other stations include KLSA 90.7 FM in Alexandria, Louisiana; KBSA 90.9 FM in El Dorado, Arkansas; KLDN 88.9 FM in Lufkin, Texas; KTYK 100.7 FM in Overton, Texas; translator K214CE in Grambling, Louisiana; and KSCL 91.3 FM in Shreveport. Together, the stations broadcast public radio in one of the largest listening areas of the country, serving South Arkansas, East Texas, along with Northwest and Central Louisiana, and a small portion of Southeast Oklahoma.
For the first 28 years of its history, KDAQ was housed in what was described at the time as “temporary buildings” installed at LSU Shreveport.
With the metal buildings in poor condition, in December of 2012 Red River Radio moved to its current home, a renovated church building on the southwest corner of the LSU Shreveport campus, right off Youree Drive in south Shreveport.
Many people in the community helped make KDAQ a reality. That included local Shreveport Attorney Neil T. Erwin. In fact, Erwin says what became KDAQ actually began as an economic development project through the chamber of commerce, with then-chamber president Donald Weiss. “And he thought that it would help economic development for this area, which was the largest unserved area in the country at the time, of public radio, to be able to officer this as a cultural and news amenities.” Erwin says he worked with the chamber in what turned out to be a 6-year-long effort to make public radio available locally.
Red River Radio offers three separate streams of programming. The main channel features a variety of news, classical, jazz, and entertainment programs. For the classical music enthusiast the station carries classical music 24 hour a day on HD 2. For those who love news and information programming KDAQ features 24 hours each day on HD 3. These streams can be heard over the air with an HD radio or you can listen anywhere around the world online via the digital streams, accessible on the station website of RedRiverRadio.org.
