KVSM was launched on October 3, 1946. A special dedication ceremony was held at 10:50 AM, perfectly matching the station’s location in the middle of the radio dial. The studio and transmitter site was near where San Mateo Creek empties into San Francisco Bay.
Licensed as The San Mateo County Broadcasters, the station’s owners included San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Edmund Scott and former San Mateo County Board of Supervisors chairman Hugh H. Smith Sr. They made it clear the station’s focus would be local, using phrases such as “Peninsula Programs for Peninsula People”, “Your Home Interest Station”, and “Your Pioneer Station for the Peninsula”. Gordon France served as general manager.
KVSM was initially a daytime-only station broadcasting with just 250 watts of power. Within months, management petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to allow full-time operation at an increased power of 5,000 watts. That request languished while the station continued its low-power daytime-only schedule.
In June 1948, KVSM inaugurated a Palo Alto studio, atop the President Hotel on University Avenue and said the remote studio would be used from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM daily. Cliff Fox was named to manage the Palo Alto studio and later in 1948, he took over from Gordon France as station manager.
By the end of 1949, Hugh Smith bought out his partners for the reported sum of $17,000 and became the sole licensee of KVSM.
KVSM was among the many small stations that signed on with the Progressive Broadcasting System in 1950, a startup operation that promised to be “Your Key to Better Daytime Entertainment”. The attempt to provide an alternative to the major radio networks fell short of its goals and folded at the end of 1951. One of the stars who could be heard on the Progressive network was Cottonseed Clark, who would wind up joining KVSM full-time as the station shifted to a country-western music format.
Clark was a big talent on a small station, leveraging his popularity to open his own nightclub in Belmont, complete with a studio from he could broadcast his morning show on KVSM.
Popular Bay Area radio and TV personality Les Malloy bought KVSM in 1953 for $75,000 and a few months later, fired Cottonseed Clark, who immediately found a new radio home at San Jose’s KEEN. Under Malloy’s ownership, KVSM continued its popular country-western format with an increase in power to 1,000 watts.
In May, 1956, Malloy agreed to sell KVSM for $400,000 to an entity called Intercontinental Broadcasting, which had plans to connect a group of western radio and TV stations into a sort of network. The idea was to take programs which proved successful in one market and air them via transcription discs or tape recordings in other markets. Among Intercontinental’s directors were Hollywood figure Albert Zugsmith and Frank Oxarart, the father of later-day KCBS general manager Frank Oxarart Jr.
Cottonseed Clark returned to KVSM in 1957, becoming a familiar sight to afternoon San Mateo Bridge commuters who drove past a rustic-looking structure that housed Clark’s studio. He was known to wave to drivers who would honk their horns at him in reply.
In April 1958, Frank Oxarart told longtime San Mateo Times radio columnist Bob Foster that changes were coming to KVSM. The country-western music was going away, to be replaced by what Oxarart described as a “more modern” format. Plenty of longtime staffers were being let go. The studios were being moved to the Hillsdale Mall, where Oxarart said shoppers would be able to watch announcers do their work.
And the call letters were being changed to KOFY, ending the dozen-year run of KVSM.