KKWV briefly occupied the 93.3 FM frequency originally created for KYA-FM. “The Wave” carried what was described as a “rhythmic adult contemporary” format after station owner Infinity Broadcasting pulled the plug on an eight-year run of country music on KYCY. On January 2, 2002 KYCY became KKWV.
The changeover had been heralded by what’s known in the radio business as “stunting”: the station played the song “It’s A Small World” for three consecutive days, interspersed with the message “The talk of the town is coming soon”, before unveiling the new format on New Year’s Eve 2001.
The newly-formatted station, under the guidance of veteran programmer and consultant Don Kelly, promised it would play “Music That Moves The World”. It turned out the mix of rhythmic music heavily spiced with reggae tracks did nothing to move the ratings needle; the station’s ratings were worse than they had been when playing country music and remained buried at the bottom of Arbitron’s reports through the rest of 2002 and into 2003.
On September 3, 2003, “The Wave” hit the beach. Infinity yanked the “world music” sound and began simulcasting the soft-rock format of its San Jose station KBAY on the 93.3 FM frequency. Marketing became “The New K -BAY, 93.3 San Francisco and 94.5 San Jose.”
KBAY’s studios and offices were moved to San Francisco and for a year, KBAY became KBAA while KKWV became KBAY.
In 2004, Infinity transferred the station to the Spanish Broadcasting System in a transaction that gave Infinity’s parent company Viacom an equity stake in SBS. The station flipped to Spanish-language programming as KRZZ “La Raza”.
