KBRG came into being in 1964 when the station’s license changed hands. The station had first been heard in late 1959 as KBCO, with the license held by Bay FM Broadcasters, Inc. Bay FM was headed by Saul Levine, who would go on to a lengthy and legendary career as a broadcast station owner in Southern California.
KBCO was among a number of Bay Area FM stations carrying classical music, billing its mix as “Golden Music”. With a transmitter atop Mt. Sutro and 50,000 watts of power, the 24-hour station attempted to find traction among a growing number of local FM signals.
Apollo Broadcasting’s acquisition in 1964 led to the change to the KBRG call letters and, initially, the continuation of the stereo classics format.
The arrival of veteran broadcaster Ken Carey as station manager in 1966 set KBRG on a new course. Carey saw an opportunity to launch the region’s first full-time Spanish language station at a time when other stations offering Spanish programming held daytime-only licenses.
Things really got interesting when Carey got word that San Jose’s KLOK was ready to abandon a number of non-English language programs. KBRG and KLOK arranged a deal to simulcast the foreign-language programs for thirty days.
One hitch: KLOK was an AM station and KBRG was on FM; not everyone who’d been listening had an FM receiver. Carey later told the San Francisco Chronicle that there was a mini-boom in FM radio sales. “The Chinese broadcaster was so overwhelmed with requests that he opened his own dealership,” Carey reported, “[and] the Italian bookshop told us it sold more than two hundred FM sets in just two days.”
It’s likely that “the Chinese broadcaster” to whom Carey referred was Tommy Tong, whose Chinese Hour had been heard on KLOK before making the move to KBRG. History had come full circle: Tong had actually started the Chinese Hour broadcasts in 1939 to help sell radios from his San Francisco appliance store.
A November 1969 newspaper feature on the station reported it was serving 40 different ethnic groups in 27 languages. Ken Carey was quoted as saying, “We seem to have achieved a status that the United Nations might envy.” Neither Ken Carey nor his wife Karla spoke more than a few words of those many languages, but they understood they had a success story on their hands.
A notable member of the staff was public affairs director Evangeline Baker, a pioneering female broadcaster known as the First Lady of Radio in San Francisco. She had her own interview show on KBRG.
The mix of languages gave the station a unique role in Bay Area politics. Candidates realized that it was worth their while to advertise on KBRG. Karla Carey recalled in a 1974 San Francisco Chronicle interview that Joseph Alioto, Robert F. Kennedy, and Edmund G. “Pat” Brown had been among those to buy air time on KBRG for their respective campaigns.
Advertisers could reach multiple ethnic communities; commercials were translated into every language heard on KBRG.
A change with implications for the station’s future came in 1969, when Entertainment Communications Inc. (later known as Entercom and the forerunner to Audacy) acquired the station for $550,000. Philadelphia attorney Joseph Field was just getting into the radio business; KBRG was among the first three stations purchased by his new company.
The station would eventually ease out of the multilingual format to focus on the Bay Area’s large Spanish-speaking population. Through the 1970s and into the early 1980s, Spanish-language formats such as Stereo En Español and Caballero Radio were aired on KBRG. The station aired Oakland Athletics baseball games in Spanish for several seasons and carried a Spanish translation of KPIX-TV’s 11 PM newscast.
Meanwhile, competition for the Spanish-speaking audience was growing. By 1983, there were five Bay Area stations broadcasting in Spanish and KBRG’s market dominance had faded. In February 1983, Entercom dropped the Spanish-language programming, triggering protests and an advertiser boycott by community groups which argued that Spanish-speaking listeners would be deprived of a 24-hour radio outlet.
Entercom switched the station to a “Hot Hits” format and changed the call letters to KITS.
But KBRG didn’t go away. A few months later, it simply moved a couple of clicks down the dial to 104.9 FM.
That happened when Spanish Metro, whose Fremont-licensed KDOS had been broadcasting in Spanish for several years, grabbed the KBRG brand equity by simply applying for the call letters Entercom had discarded. The Federal Communications Commission granted the change in December 1983.
By 1984, KBRG was billing itself as La Nueva KBRG and was airing every Oakland A’s game in Spanish with Amaury Pi-Gonzales and Julio Gonzales calling the action. The station also carried San Jose Earthquakes soccer in Spanish.
KBRG was sold in 1986 to Radio América, the company founded by brothers Danny and James Villanueva. Danny Villanueva, a former NFL kicker, would go on to found the Univision Spanish-language media empire.
Three years later, the newly formed EXCL Communications acquired KBRG and KLOK from Radio América.
In 1993, the format changed from Regional Mexican to Spanish AC, billed as Super Estrella. That lasted until 1995, when a format change brought in Spanish AC Radio Romantica.
1997 saw another frequency change for KBRG. This time, it was the result of a three-way station swap triggered when the pioneering Snell family sold off its radio holdings, including San Jose’s KBAY. American Radio Systems purchased KBAY and its 100.3 FM frequency, shuffling the call letters off to the 94.5 FM frequency previously occupied by KUFX. KBRG landed at 100.3.
EXCL was acquired by Entravision in 2000. Univision Radio Network purchased KBRG from Entravision on January 1, 2006 and switched the station to Spanish Adult Hits under the name Recuerdo 100.3.
Since 2018, KBRG has been known as Amor 100.3.
