Though broadcasting was born in San Jose with Charles “Doc” Herrold’s pioneering 1909 transmissions that evolved into station KQW, the city lived through both World Wars with no other hometown broadcasters.
A move toward licensing more regional stations after World War 2 opened up more frequencies, and on September 19, 1946, Santa Clara Broadcasting Company put its new station on the air from a facility on Story Road.
KSJO, standing for “San Jose’s Own”, was a 1,000 watt, daytime-only station. It was the first new signal to emanate from the rapidly-growing Santa Clara Valley in the post-war era, beating KLOK to the punch by a few weeks. Sister station KSJO-FM went on the air in December of 1946, sharing the same facilities.
In the early years, KSJO broadcast a mixture of local programming including news and San Jose State University sports.
In June 1960, the station was sold to Riley Gibson’s Cal-Radio, Inc. The call letters were changed to KLIV and Lee Kopp was installed as program director. 
What happened over the next dozen years or so cemented KLIV in Bay Area radio history (the station was named a Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame Legendary Station in 2017). KLIV caught a wave–musically, culturally, and figuratively–tapping into the surf scene happening just over the hill in Santa Cruz.
It seemed like every Santa Clara Valley teenager badgered Mom and Dad to slap a KLIV decal on the bumper of the family station wagon.
The station brought big personalities to the airwaves, promoted concerts, and “broke” music from local groups like the Count Five, People!, and the Syndicate of Sound.
The summer of 1967 saw another ownership change. A group of investors from Rochester, NY led by Robert S. Kieve purchased the station. Empire Broadcasting would operate KLIV for the next 52 years.
KLIV went through a variety of formats after its golden Top-40 years. There were forays into hard rock, disco, album-oriented rock, big band, and country, along with a lengthy effort to compete with San Francisco news and talk powerhouses KGO and KCBS with a San Jose-focused all-news format.
The all-news era came to an end in 2016, when Kieve, still actively operating the station in his 90’s, issued a letter saying the station had not been profitable in 30 years. Kieve announced he was shifting KLIV to a classic country format called “Country Gold”. That lasted less than three years.
Kieve shut down the transmitter on the night of January 28, 2019. A year later, the station was sold for a token $100,000 to Pham Radio Communications, which returned KLIV to the airwaves in 2021, broadcasting Vietnamese-language programming.
ADDITIONAL EXHIBITS: