KPTI’s May 2002 birth came when owner Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) launched “The Party”, a dance music format that replaced a simulcast of San Jose’s KSJO that had exited under a lease agreement with previous ownership.
Early returns were not particularly encouraging. San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic Neva Chonin used phrases like “mixed and mostly disappointing” and “an exercise in soul destruction” in her review of “The Party”.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. The only English-language station among SBS’ mainland United States holdings took an aggressive marketing approach. One on-air campaign had a telephone operator voice intoning, “the number you are calling, 9-4-9, has changed. The new number is 9-2-7.” “9-4-9” was a reference to Wild 94.9 KYLD, which used its own marketing muscle to mount billboards proclaiming it to be the Bay Area’s real “party station”.
In any case, KPTI never made much of a dent in the ratings, and in the fall of 2003, SBS announced a deal to sell the station to 3 Point Media for $30 million. The buyer was headed by Christopher Devine and Bruce Buzil, a pair of investors whose nationwide activities would trigger numerous lawsuits in the years ahead. The deal would hit a few hiccups before closing in 2004.
On May 25, 2004 KPTI became KBTB.
