KSFX came to life on New Year’s Day 1971 when station owner ABC dropped the longstanding KGO-FM call letters. The new call letters were accompanied by a new progressive rock format for the station. It didn’t work out well; ratings tumbled compared to the previous automated “The Love Sound” programming.
ABC was in the midst of trying to chart a new course for its group of FM stations. In San Francisco, that included moving KSFX away from “big sister” KGO’s Golden Gate Avenue facilities into new studios on Polk Street.
KSFX would soon become a virtual twin of New York City’s WABC. By 1973, Rick Sklar, a Top 40 pioneer who would later serve as vice president of programming for ABC Radio, had installed the same jingles, music selection, and music rotation that were being heard on WABC. Top 40, long the province of AM stations, was now an FM phenomenon.
A notable stunt occurred on Saturday January 20, 1973 when KSFX played Dobie Gray’s new record “Drift Away” over and over and over again…for 8 and a half hours.
KSFX joined a number of Bay Area TV and radio stations in shifting to the new Sutro Tower transmitter site in 1973.
By 1977, ABC was claiming success with its FM stations. The company took out ads in trade publications boasting that the ABC-owned FM’s were doing better than any other group of FM stations nationwide, approaching 5 million listeners a week. In San Francisco, KSFX was holding its own against rock-oriented competitors like KSAN and KMEL but was being buried by Top 40 behemoth KFRC.
In the spring of 1978, Gloria Johnson was promoted from ABC’s Detroit station WRIF to become program director at KSFX, one of a handful of women to hold such a role in the industry at that time.
It was the era of disco music, and KSFX–now “Disco 104”–jumped aboard the boogie train. The station threw its promotional efforts behind a June 1978 “Disco Dance-a-thon” at the Cow Palace. Promoters expected 5,000 dancers to help set a new Guiness Book world record for most dancers in one place at one time.
It worked for a while. By the summer of 1980, KSFX had worked its way up to eighth place in the San Francisco average quarter-hour ratings. The DJ staff included a young Marcos Gutierrez, who would go on to a lengthy career as a broadcaster and academic in the Bay Area. The station was promoting a KC and the Sunshine Band show at the Concord Pavilion.
But disco’s wave crested quickly. It was still 1980 when another KSFX program director, Jim Smith, told The Berkeley Gazette, “We don’t even use the term ‘disco’ on the air because of the negative connotations.” Smith went on to say, “There are just so many times anyone can listen to what sounds like the same song.” KSFX was now mixing in Fleetwood Mac and Kenny Loggins while still playing the disco tunes that were attracting mainstream listeners.
After veering back toward Top 40, KSFX tried another run at rock. With Pat Evans as the latest program director, KSFX (and fellow Los Angeles ABC property KLOS) leaned into rock. It didn’t work in San Francisco, and it didn’t last long.
By 1982, the grand experiment was over at KSFX. The station brought back the KGO-FM call letters and returned to a limited simulcast of KGO News/Talk 81, with its own roster of talk show hosts during parts of its daily schedule.
Two years later, ABC cut the cord entirely. On January 3, 1984, KGO-FM was sold for $5.5 million to the owners of San Jose’s KLOK (1170 AM), at which time it adopted an Adult Contemporary music format as KLOK-FM.
