KFGY replaced KLCQ in the fall of 1996, after the Amaturo Group purchased four Sonoma County stations. Amaturo quickly changed not only the call letters assigned to the 92.9 FM frequency, but also the format. Out went classic rock, in came country, branded as “Froggy 92.9”.
The “Froggy” format would wind up on numerous stations nationwide. It was the creation of onetime disc jockey Kerby Confer, who wound up in the Country Radio Hall of Fame, despite never having spun records on a country music station.
In 2000, Lawrence Amaturo sold his Santa Rosa cluster of four stations, including KFGY, to Baltimore-based Emerald City Radio Partnership, LLC., headed by Paul Robinson. The price was variously reported as “considerably north of $15 million” and “up to $25 million”. Amaturo told trade publication M Street Journal that he was changing his focus to his internet business called UncleWebster.com, a local advertising platform radio stations could use as a source of non-traditional revenue.
Robinson and Emerald City didn’t keep KFGY and the other Sonoma County stations for long. Illinois-based Maverick Media Partners became the next owner in a deal that closed in the summer of 2001.
Maverick operated the stations until 2013, when Lawrence Amaturo, who’d been running car dealerships in Sonoma County, started Sonoma Media Group. Longtime broadcaster Michael O’Shea joined as president, and Sonoma Media Group bought the four stations Amaturo had sold thirteen years earlier.
After numerous changes in ownership and format at 92.9 on the Sonoma County dial, “Froggy 92.9” became a North Bay standard.
