In the long history of Bay Area radio broadcasting, the short life of Oakland station KFYI is one of the more remarkable stories.
KFYI went on the air with an all-news format in December of 1984 and shut it down less than four months later, burning through millions of dollars in what virtually every industry observer saw as a quixotic effort to take on market powerhouses KGO and KCBS.
Even before the doomed news operation hit the airwaves, there was controversy because the format change ended the legendary run of KDIA at that spot on the dial. The long-popular soul music station held a place of honor and importance to the East Bay’s Black community. An Oakland Tribune report on the format change referred to KDIA as a “monumental institution” in the Black community.
What had been the “Lucky 13” KDIA vanished on December 9, 1984 when the call letters were switched to KFYI. The all-news programming stumbled out of the starting gate the next day. Early reviews were not kind: one local media observer was quoted as saying the station sounded “like wire copy coming out of a speakerphone.”
On April 5, 1985, the all-news sound was gone, and on July 3, 1985, the station was again KDIA.
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