Solano County’s KUIC began life in 1968 as KVFS. Northern California Stereocasters was the licensee, listing Bruce Ziemienski as president, general manager, and chief engineer. Those original call letters represented the major communities in its service area: Vacaville, Fairfield, and Suisun City.
Five years later, the owners of Roseville, CA station KPOP purchased the station, changing the call letters to KUIC and installing Gene Ragle as general manager.
KUIC’s trick was to remain relentlessly local, focusing on the swath of land between the Bay and Sacramento Valley. Programming has generally tended toward a middle-of-the-road music mix.
Coast Radio, owned by John and Jim Levitt, acquired KUIC in 1998 as part of a stable of suburban Bay Area stations (the others were KKIQ/Livermore and KKDV/Walnut Creek). Under Coast Radio’s ownership, the stations billed themselves as “Your Hometown Station”.
Soon after the Coast Radio acquisition, John Young joined the station as morning personality, beginning a run of over 20 years.
The Coast Radio era came to an end in 2015 with the sale of KUIC, KKIQ, and KKDV to Oregon-based Alpha Media.