Bob Kieve’s purchase of KREP in 1972 was followed by a change of call letters to KARA. For years, station imaging intoned, “KARA–in Santa Clara.“
KARA initially aired a largely-automated Oldies format, fueled by a cache of over 1,000 45 RPM records gathered in San Francisco by John McLeod and Dave Sholin. The two brought the records back to the KLIV studios where they were joined by Kieve and chief engineer Vince Lopopolo for lengthy listening sessions, auditioning each disc before deciding if it should make the KARA playlist.
KARA would transition to a Soft Adult Contemporary sound in the 1980s.
In 2002, Kieve cashed out of KARA, selling the station to Dallas-based Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation, which owned more than 50 Spanish-language stations nationwide, including signals in a number of major markets. The KARA deal was a spectacular financial success for Kieve and his Empire Broadcasting partners: they’d paid $470,000 for the station and sold it for $58 million.
