KDFC came to life on September 1, 1948, broadcasting from the windswept and often-foggy heights of Sausalito’s Mt. Beacon. Three young men who’d gotten out of the Army after World War
2 were the founders. Their initials formed the call letters: Ed Davis, who began in sales, engineer Herb Florance, and first General Manager, Bill Crocker.
From the beginning, the station played classical music. In the early days, that music came from 78 RPM phonograph records and was broadcast only from 3:30 PM to 10:30 PM.
1997 saw Bonneville International acquire the station and fine-tune the format. While the music was still classical, announcers with a bit of personality were added to the mix. It was an immediate success: by 2000, KDFC could claim to be the Bay Area’s top-rated music station. Future Bay Area Radio Hall of Famers Hoyt Smith (2016), Dianne Nicolini (2016), John Evans (2019) and Bill Lueth (2021) helped form the backbone of the station. KDFC would win the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award for Classical Station of the Year in 2003 and repeat the honor in 2005.
In 2011, the station began a new era as a nonprofit, listener-supported station under the umbrella of the University of Southern California and its station KUSC. KDFC would shift its programming to a number of FM frequencies as previous ownership maintained control of the legacy 102.1 FM signal.
In 2022, KDFC and KUSC began to brand themselves as “Classical California”, anchoring a ten-station network covering much of California.
KDFC was accorded a Bay Area Radio Museum and Hall of Fame Legendary Station honor in 2024.