KYA The station originated as KYA in
1926, and has had 14 owners and 4 different callsigns in 85 years. KYA was owned by everyone from
Hearst Corporation to
Avco Broadcasting of California, a subsidiary of
the jet and aerospace contractor. The owners were Vincent I. Kraft of Seattle, who had started
KJR (AM) there, and Frederick C. Clift of San Francisco. It got a license for 1,000 watts on 850 kHz. in November 1927. Its studios moved to the
Warfield Theatre building at 988 Market Street, but the transmitter stayed at the Clift Hotel. In November 1928,
Johnny Patrick and Helen Troy, developed a musical comedy routine of “Cecil and Sally”, first broadcast in 1928 on KYA, and debuted
The Funniest Things on a West Coast connection of a short-lived ABC network, later, after the ABC network went bankrupt, in 1929, it moved to
KPO and the NBC Pacific Coast Network. In 1930, Patrick and Troy syndicated their programs to other radio stations by
electrical transcription records, made at the MacGregor and Sollie recording studio in San Francisco, with the program heard on over 53 radio stations, including 27 states, 5 Canadian provinces, the Hawaiian Islands, Australia and New Zealand, between 1930 and 1933. In November 1928, KYA moved to 1230 kHz. as part of a nationwide frequency reshuffling, and joined the
Columbia Broadcasting System. By May 1929 its transmitter was reported to be at 680 Geary Street at Taylor Street. The station licensee went bankrupt in August, and KYA was transferred to a new corporation by the end of 1929. The transmitter facility was moved again, on 25 June 1930, to the
Whitcomb Hotel. Hall of Fame disc jockey and
underground radio pioneer
Tom Donahue (a.k.a. "Big Daddy"), and Tommy Saunders, who retired from KYA's successor, KOIT, in
2006. Other notable disc jockeys who plied their trade on KYA's airwaves in the 1960s included
Les Crane, (air name Johnny Raven),
Casey Kasem,
Jim Stagg, Bobby Mitchell, Norman Davis, "Emperor" Gene Nelson,
Peter Tripp,
Tony Bigg, Russ "The Moose" Syracuse, Chris Edwards, In the mid-1960s, a group of KYA DJs, led by Holliday, formed a basketball team known as the KYA Oneders (pronounced "Wonders"). The team played many Bay Area high school faculties, helping the schools raise funds for a variety of programs. Perhaps the most famous of the Oneders was
Rick Barry, who played for the team during the 1967-68 campaign before jumping from the NBA's
San Francisco Warriors to the ABA's
Oakland Oaks. During the 1960s, the radio station issued weekly tabloid newsletters and hit sheets, The ''KYA Swingin' Sixty
and later the KYA Beat
(also known as The Official Top 30''). These popular flyers were available at Bay Area record stores and other sponsor locations. The station's under-promoted news team included Mark Adams(Don Allen), Terry Sullivan,
Larry Buller, (air name of Larry Brownell),
Tony Tremayne (air name of Mel Fritze) and Brad Messer, who would later be inducted in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.
Easy Rock 93 and Oldies In September 1979, KYA AM & FM flipped to a light album rock format under the title "Easy Rock 93." Within months the AM station would flip again, this time to an oldies format while the FM station would continue the light album rock format as KLHT (K-LITE). Morgan, Mora, Serr and Syracuse would be brought back to revive the station from its heyday. This format would hold until the station was sold in 1983. KYA's dominance was basically over by the late 1960s when FM stations began playing rock & roll and gained large chunks of the audiences. King Broadcasting took over on November 1, 1977.
KOIT and KXLR KYA, which became KOIT in
1983 under the ownership of Bonneville International Corp., still transmits from the station's classic
Julia Morgan-designed transmitter building on Candlestick Point, with studios at 2nd and Howard in
San Francisco. Morgan was on retainer for Hearst, and the building has the trademark Hearst eagle above the front door. A KYA jingle can be heard at the beginning of the movie
Zodiac. A commercial for a now-defunct local
San Francisco Bay Area retailer, Gensler-Lee Diamonds, can be heard preceding the jingle. "Gensler-Lee Diamond; Gensler-Lee Diamonds; the place to buy diamonds if you're really smart; Gensler-Lee Diamonds... the store... with a heart!" In mid-2007, Bonneville reached an agreement to sell the 1260 AM frequency to
IHR Educational Broadcasting. IHR took over the station's operations in December of that year under a time-brokerage agreement, and officially closed on the station on February 1, 2008. In 2007, KOIT (the former 1260/KYA) became KSFB, a Catholic-oriented station owned by
Immaculate Heart Radio. Ironically, KYA's chief Top 40 rival in the 1960s and 1970s, KFRC (610 AM), is now the Christian-oriented
KEAR (the KFRC call letters would return in January 2009, this time at
1550 AM replacing KYCY and the station is owned by
CBS Radio).
Catholic Radio On December 10, 2007, a religious format came to 1260 AM; the call sign was changed to KSFB. KSFB is part of one of the largest Catholic radio networks in America, and its daily broadcasts include daily Mass and rosary. Many other programs, such as
Life Is Worth Living with Bishop
Fulton J. Sheen, Fr.
John Corapi, and
Mother Angelica, were also on the air. KSFB flipped to the
Relevant Radio branding when IHR Educational Broadcasting and Starboard Media Foundation consummated their merger on July 3, 2017. ==Translators==