KOBY was the first station to air a Top-40 format in the Bay Area. Parked at the top end of the AM dial, KOBY was the descendant of Stephen Cisler’s debt-ridden KEAR, which had been forced off the air in 1956 when it was seized by the Treasury Department for non-payment of taxes.
The station came back on the air a few weeks later after 32-year-old Denver investor David Segal’s Mid-America Broadcasters paid $400,000 to clear the station’s debts and assume control.
It was a messy changeover, as Cisler had been fighting with investors as well as NABET, the union representing KEAR staff members. The union launched a strike, picketing the San Francisco studios and Belmont transmitter of the station now carrying the call letters KOBY.
The Top-40 format launched in October, shooting to number one in the ratings books in just twelve weeks without spending any money for outside advertising or promotion.
KOBY grabbed headline in the spring of 1957 when Segal sought permission to carry a live broadcast of the execution of Death Row inmate Burton Abbott at San Quentin Prison. The request was denied.
Another Segal attention-grabber was a book he handed out, entitled What I Know About the Radio Business. It contained 144 blank pages.
KOBY’s success with the Top-40 format proved its own undoing. Soon, better-funded and more powerful stations were adopting the format, and KOBY’s days atop the ratings dogpile were over.
In 1960, Segal sold KOBY for a reported $772,000 to Sherwood Gordon, who owned stations in Phoenix and San Diego. The call letters were changed from KOBY to KQBY and the rock-and-roll gave way to beautiful music.