KAIV The Thousand Oaks Broadcasting Company applied on August 7, 1961, for a
construction permit to build a new FM radio station in town, which the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted on October 17, 1962. Thousand Oaks was a partnership of two
Columbia Pictures employees, a Los Angeles attorney, and
Sandy Koufax, pitcher for the
Los Angeles Dodgers; at the time it filed for the permit, it was interested in stereo broadcasting, which only two Los Angeles–area stations were capable of. After receiving FCC approval, the station almost was derailed by an adverse zoning ruling involving its studio location, the
Conejo Valley Shopping Center, which had an illegal third entrance from Moorpark Road. The company successfully appealed the ruling to the
Ventura County Board of Supervisors. KNJO, call letters representing the Conejo Valley, began broadcasting on April 1, 1963. KNJO was a community-oriented radio station featuring local news, sports, and remote broadcasts from a variety of local events. Within two years of signing on, the station faced its first ownership change. In August 1964, a minority stockholder petitioned for Thousand Oaks Broadcasting Company to be declared in bankruptcy. After negotiations, the new management took over later that month, though the change in control was not filed with the FCC until August 1965 and did not take effect until March 1966. In 1970, KNJO was acquired by John H. Poole, former owner of KBIG radio on
Catalina Island, and Alan Fischler. Vice president Bob Jacobson agreed to buy the station in 1979 in 1980, it was instead sold to the Palomar Broadcasting Corporation of
Encino. The transaction marked Poole's definitive withdrawal from broadcasting to focus on the wine industry. Ira Barmak, owner of Thousand Oaks AM station
KMDY, acquired KNJO in 1987. While the sale was pending at the FCC, the studios in the shopping center, by this point renamed the Park Oaks Shopping Center, suffered a fire; the station was off the air for several days before relocating elsewhere in the complex. Both stations moved to new quarters after the transaction closed, with a relocation of the KNJO transmitter site required as a condition of vacating the premises. Comedy Broadcasting exited radio between 1991 and 1992; it sold KMDY to
Danny Villanueva and KNJO to Flagship Communications Company, owned by attorney Darry Sragow. Under Flagship, the station added helicopter traffic coverage for commuters into and out of Los Angeles as well as local newscasts and a daily news summary from the
News Chronicle newspaper. During its ownership, in 1993, a brush fire destroyed the KNJO transmitter site, and in the middle of studio renovations, the
Northridge earthquake took it off the air for 30 hours. In October 1995, the general manager died of leukemia. This prompted Darry Sragow and his wife Susan to consider selling.
KYZA KYZA signed on June 16, 1959, as KACE-FM, originally broadcasting from
Riverside at 1,000 watts. Owned by Ray LaPica, it simulcast co-owned
KACE (1570 AM) during the day and offered a simulcast to provide stereo music at night using AM and FM. The KACE stations switched from
middle of the road music to country in 1972. To give the FM a new identity, it became KCNW in April 1974. KACE and KCNW changed call signs to KHNY-AM-FM on February 17, 1976, accompanying a format flip to
adult contemporary. The FM became KWDJ in 1983, and by 1988 it was back in the country format. It changed call letters again to KQLH and its format to adult contemporary on December 25, 1990; the call sign had been dropped by 95.1 MHz in San Bernardino when that station, previously adult contemporary, flipped to country as
KFRG in 1989. With its more powerful signal, KFRG had quickly beat out KWDJ as the
Inland Empire's leading country music station, prompting the shift. In 1992, Riverside County Broadcasters sold KQLH to the Amaturo Group, which owned KFRG. Amaturo flipped KQLH the next year to
classic country, moving it in with KFRG at its studios in
Colton. Intended to launch with new KCKZ call letters, local competitor KCKC objected, so the station retained the KQLH call sign for the time being and called itself Cactus Radio. The format at the renamed KAKT did not stick, as in August, the station shifted to a younger-skewing country format. It rebranded as "OJ 92.7", with matching KOOJ call letters, because it played "artists with juice". ==92.7 trimulcast==