KYA signed on from the Clift Hotel in San Francisco on December 18, 1926 as part of the Pacific Broadcasting Company. It was the second station in what was intended to be a network of radio outlets in Seattle, Spokane, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
That network failed, as did a subsequent network affiliation when the stock market crashed in 1929. The next year, 1930, the National Broadcasting System (NBC) bought all the stations, giving them a third affiliate in San Francisco (NBC already owned KPO and KGO) it didn’t really have much use for..
KYA was spun off within four years to the Hearst Publishing Company, owners of the San Francisco Examiner, which built new studios in the newspaper building and retained architect Julia Morgan, who had designed Hearst Castle in San Simeon and several other properties for publisher William Randolph Hearst, to design an art deco transmitter building atop Candlestick Hill, which still stands today.
Hearst kept KYA for eight years, until 1942, and then the station passed through another half-dozen owners over the next 24 years.
While Bartell Family Radio, which bought the station in 1958, is generally credited with switching KYA to a Top 40 format, the previous owners, KYA Inc., actually made the leap in the late summer of 1957, hoping to get a piece of the success KOBY had enjoyed since the fall of ‘56.
What Bartell brought to KYA was experience in the format, which it had been airing on its stations in San Diego, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Birmingham, Boston and Atlanta. That expertise gave KYA the tools it needed to establish itself as the Top 40 leader before Crowell-Collier could buy KLX from the Oakland Tribune and launch “Color Radio” at KEWB in 1959.
Even then, success in Top 40 didn’t stop owners from flipping KYA for a profit. Bartell paid a million dollars for KYA in 1958 and sold it to Churchill Broadcasting for $1.25 million in 1962. In 1966, Churchill sold KYA to AVCO Broadcasting for $4 million (plus another $325,000 for the 93.3 FM license). Two months earlier, Crowell-Collier had sold KEWB to Metromedia, which three months later would exit the Top 40 battle and become KNEW.
But KYA was already facing a new challenge to its Top 40 supremacy. Bill Drake, who Bartell had transferred from Atlanta to program KYA in 1961, had gone on to RKO General Radio, made its KHJ in Los Angeles number one with a Top 40 format in six months in 1965, and now was being given the job of creating the same magic for KFRC.
The “Drake Format” of 1966 was different from what he’d programmed at KYA. It was faster, cleaner, and in many ways more generic. KYA had loosened up after Drake left in early 1962, and new management allowed personalities like “Emperor” Gene Nelson, Ed Hider, Johnny Holliday, Tony Bigg, Tommy Saunders, Russ “The Moose” Syracuse and Jim Washburne to become household names and hometown heroes.
KFRC had held onto Bobby Dale (but not for long) and Royce Johnson (for a bit longer than Bobby) from its old middle-of-the-road format and brought Mike Phillips and Steve O’Shea over from KNBR, but the rest of the crew (Ed Mitchell, Glenn Adams and Howard Clark) were out-of-towners up against local favorites.
Six months in, Drake made substitutions, pulling talent out of his “farm system”, enlisting Jay Stevens from KGB in San Diego, Dale Dorman from KYNO in Fresno and even transferring Sebastian Stone from KHJ, but at the one-year mark, the Hooper ratings showed KYA with a 9.5 share of the audience to KFRC’s 8.1.
Two years in, the race was much tighter. Drake had brought in Bill Wade and K.O. Bayley from San Diego and Tom Maule and Dave Diamond from L.A. KYA kept Johnny, Russ the Moose and Tommy and brought in three hired guns—Gary Schaeffer and Chris Edwards from Miami and Tom Campbell from Dayton, Ohio.
The May-June 1968 Hooper gave KFRC a razor-thin win–-8.6 to KYA’s 8.4. But the new guys understood the power of personality and being the home team. Chris Edwards took their phone calls and made them feel like personal friends. Tom Campbell loaned them his records, his stereo, even his Corvette. They all showed up to play basketball against high school faculties around the Bay.
They won over the local audience and beat out KFRC in the October ‘68 ARB ratings, 7.0 to 6.1. KYA beat KFRC by two full points—12.0 to 10.0—in the August/September 1969 Pulse ratings. They fought to a statistical tie…8.0 for KFRC, 7.9 for KYA in the October 1970 ARB.
It wasn’t until spring of 1972, six years into the battle, that KFRC was able to beat KYA by a full point or more. By that point, many of the big names at KYA had moved on and new program directors from out of town (Julian Breen from New York and Christopher Cane from San Diego) were focused on formatics inspired by Buzz Bennett’s “Q Format” which made KYA sound like a Top 40 station from anywhere except San Francisco.
That phase lasted until the fall of 1974, by which time AVCO (involved in motion pictures, financial services and real estate) was in financial trouble, reporting a loss of $20.6 million. In mid-1975, it announced it was putting all 15 of its broadcast properties, including KYA, up for sale.
KYA was the last to sell—two years after the announcement was made that AVCO was getting out of broadcasting.
The sale to King Broadcasting ended 24 months of limbo, but it also signaled a shift in philosophy. The focus going forward would be 93.3 FM, and when King sold the AM to Bonneville International (owners of KOIT) so it could buy KSFO and announced it would retain the KYA call letters for 93.3 FM, that meant the end of a 57-year run for KYA on the AM dial.
On December 13, 1983, KYA became KOIT-AM, which (apart from a failed “Trendformation” format experiment in 1985 and 1986 under the call letters KXLR) lasted until a sale to Immaculate Heart Radio. Since that transfer in 2007, 1260 AM has been KSFB.
RELATED EXHIBITS:
Bay Area Radio Museum KYA Collection
KYA Featuring Bwana Johnny and Pete McNeal (Aircheck May 29, 1970)
