KJLV (95.3 FM) is a radio station in Los Gatos, California, United States, serving the San Jose and Santa Clara Valley area. It is owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF) and part of its K-Love network. The primary transmitter is on Blackberry Hill Road in Los Gatos. KJLV also has two booster stations on 95.3 MHz: KJLV-FM1 serving Scotts Valley and KJLV-FM2 at New Almaden.

KJLV
Broadcast areaSan Jose - Santa Clara Valley
Frequency95.3 MHz (HD Radio)
Programming
FormatContemporary Christian music
SubchannelsHD2: K-Love 90s
HD3: K-Love 2000s
Ownership
OwnerEducational Media Foundation
KWAI, KLVS, KMVS
History
First air date
1966 (as KLGS)
Former call signs
  • KLGS (1964–1969)
  • KTAO (1969–1974)
  • KRVE (1974–1985)
  • KATD (1985–1989)
  • KYAY (1989–1990)
  • KRTY (1990–2022)
  • KLRK (2022–2023)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID35569
ClassA
ERP870 watts
HAAT262 meters (860 ft)
Links
Public license information
WebcastListen Live
Listen Live (HD2)
Listen Live (HD3)
Websiteklove.com

What is today KJLV began broadcasting in 1966 as KLGS. From 1990 to 2022, it aired a country music format under the KRTY call sign. Despite good ratings performance, it was sold as part of the dissolution of deceased owner Bob Kieve's estate to EMF. An internet station, KRTY.com, continues the country format.

History

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KLGS (1964–1969)

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After obtaining a construction permit in 1964,[2] KLGS went full-power on 95.3 MHz in September 1966, owned by the Western Stereo Company.[3][4][5]

Tomentose Broadcasting bought KLGS in October 1968 for $133,500 and obtained the broadcast license in February 1969 for an additional $127,500.[4][6]

KTAO (1969–1974)

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KTAO was an FM station in Los Gatos, owned by former Random House editor, Bill Ryan, and Lorenzo Milam.[7][8][9][10][11][12] From March 1969 to June 1974, 95.3 had a freeform format.[13] Programming on KTAO included 48 hours of Indian music on Christmas Eve and Day of 1970 and Angela Davis announcing station identifications with calls to release the Soledad Brothers from prison.[14]

KRVE (1974–1985)

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Joseph Vieira and two partners bought KTAO in 1974 and changed the station to a Portuguese format with call sign KRVE.[15]

KATD (1985–1989)

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The 95.3 frequency took on the call sign KATD on September 9, 1985.[16] It aired a Top 40 format and DJs broadcast from a studio on North Santa Cruz Avenue in Los Gatos where passers-by could make song requests by holding up signs to the window. The station immediately faced competition against KWSS.

KYAY and KRTY (1989–2022)

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On November 28, 1989, KATD became KYAY and changed its format from rock to country.[17] KYAY changed to the KRTY call sign on January 10, 1990, but retained the country format.[17][16]

In October 1992, Bob Kieve's Empire Broadcasting purchased KRTY for more than $3 million from Randolph E. George.[18] By the latter half of the decade, as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 led to the consolidation of radio station ownership around the United States and in the Bay Area, the Empire Broadcasting family of stations including KRTY were among the last locally owned stations in the Bay Area.[19]

KRTY attracted a front page San Jose Mercury News story for banning the Dixie Chicks song "Goodbye Earl" due to violent lyrics and hosting an on-air, call-in program on March 13, 2000, about the song.[20] The station's editorial decision also got attention in the Los Angeles Times[21] and USA Today.[22] KRTY later added the song to its playlist and donated to a domestic violence shelter for every play of the song.[22]

Beginning in the 2016–17 season, KRTY became the South Bay affiliate for the Golden State Warriors radio network, after the team moved from the powerful signal of KNBR that covered the entire San Francisco Bay Area.[23]

Bob Kieve died on May 25, 2020;[24] longtime midday host Randy Jones died unexpectedly on December 1, 2021.[25]

Sale to EMF

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On March 23, 2022, Empire Broadcasting announced that it would sell KRTY to the Educational Media Foundation, operators of nationally syndicated Christian music networks Air1 and K-Love, for $3.138 million. The sale would result in the end of KRTY's country music format; Empire Broadcasting would retain the KRTY call sign.[26] The future of the country music radio format in the Bay Area was uncertain until KBAY and KKDV flipped to country on April 5.[27]

On June 3, it was announced that KRTY would leave the air on June 17, coincident with the consummation of the sale. However, the country format remained, complete with the still-retained airstaff, as an internet-only station.[28] On June 22, 2022, the station changed call signs to KLRK in a swap with the K-Love transmitter at Great Bend, Kansas.

Due to a glitch in Nielsen Audio's reporting system, KRTY's Web stream was inadvertently included along with KLRK's ratings in the station's first ratings report in July 2022. When Nielsen corrected the error to only show KLRK's listenership, it indirectly revealed that KRTY's Web stream had retained half of the listening audience it had during its last days on FM, and that the Web stream had an audience four times higher than K-Love had drawn on KLRK.[29]

The station changed its call sign to KJLV on August 8, 2023.

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KJLV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ "Broadcast actions by broadcast bureau" (PDF), Broadcasting, vol. 67, no. 18, p. 81, November 2, 1964
  3. ^ "Broadcast actions by broadcast bureau" (PDF), Broadcasting, vol. 71, no. 12, p. 119, September 19, 1966
  4. ^ a b "Changing Hands" (PDF), Broadcasting, vol. 75, no. 16, p. 52, October 14, 1968
  5. ^ "U.S. FM Radio by Frequencies and Channels" (PDF). 1966 Broadcasting Yearbook. Washington, DC: Broadcasting Publications Inc. p. B-212.
  6. ^ "Ownership changes" (PDF), Broadcasting, vol. 76, no. 7, p. 110, February 17, 1969
  7. ^ "Radio, Man". The Mercury News. November 19, 2012. Archived from the original on April 27, 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2021. The concept of listener-supported, noncommercial radio was still fairly new when it arrived in Los Gatos in about 1968. Operating at 95.3 FM, station KTAO was under the management of Lorenzo W. Milam, one of the pioneers of what was called 'free-form' radio.
  8. ^ "KTAO Radio". afana.org. Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021. KTAO-FM was a free-form radio station in Los Gatos, California, that existed from March, 1969, through June, 1974. Operating at 95.3 FM, it was run essentially as a "benevolent dictatorship" by Lorenzo W. Milam (1933–2020), a founder of KRAB in Seattle and KDNA in St. Louis, who had purchased radio station KLGS (soon to be renamed KTAO), along with veteran literary editor William Harvey "Bill" Ryan III (1928?-1986).
  9. ^ "KTAO-FM, Los Gatos - Program Guide Archive 1970 to 1971". krab archive. Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  10. ^ "bio". Don Campau. Archived from the original on April 21, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021. In 1971 Don also began hosting a radio program on KTAO-FM in Los Gatos California under the mentorship of Lorenzo W. Milam, one of the founding fathers of community radio in the USA.
  11. ^ Fong-Torres, Ben (November 26, 1970). "FM Radio: Power to What People?". Archived from the original on June 27, 2022. Retrieved February 8, 2021. Lorenzo Milam is more than a verbal/dramatic, concerned observer; he's a participant. Milam is co-owner of KDNA, the listener-supported St. Louis station that was busted. He was a founder and director of KRAB, the Seattle FM station now going through FCC hearings to determine its status as a licensee. And, as head of KTAO, a small but successful "commercial co-op" station in Santa Clara Valley (wiped out, in nearby San Francisco, by Metromedia's 50,000-watt KSAN), he is in touch with the KMPX Collective. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. ^ Munger, Philip (November 30, 2007). "Jeremy Lansman - Part I". Progressive Alaska. Archived from the original on February 14, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  13. ^ Alexander, Geoff. "KTAO Radio". Academic Film Archive of North America. Archived from the original on April 25, 2017. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  14. ^ Corrigan, Jane (February 8, 1971), "KTAO explores community radio", Stanford Daily, archived from the original on June 27, 2022, retrieved May 30, 2017
  15. ^ Rogers, Meg (2007). The Portuguese in San Jose. Charleston, SC: Arcadia. p. 121. ISBN 9780738547817. Archived from the original on June 27, 2022. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
  16. ^ a b "Call Sign History: KLRK". FCC. Archived from the original on June 27, 2022. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  17. ^ a b Weimers, Leigh (January 9, 1990). "Lotto change will add up for schools". San Jose Mercury News. p. 1D. Archived from the original on June 27, 2022. Retrieved June 20, 2019 – via NewsBank.
  18. ^ "Newsline", Billboard, vol. 104, no. 42, p. 77, October 17, 1992, archived from the original on June 27, 2022, retrieved October 18, 2020
  19. ^ Pulcrano, Dan (June 4, 1998). "The Big Radio Play". Metro Silicon Valley. Archived from the original on May 5, 1999. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
  20. ^ Kava, Brad (March 14, 2000). "Song's ban unleashes debate on violence in pop culture". San Jose Mercury News. p. 1A. Archived from the original on June 27, 2022. Retrieved June 20, 2019 – via NewsBank.
  21. ^ Lewis, Randy (April 1, 2000). "'Earl' Creates Heat--and Heated Debate". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 21, 2019. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
  22. ^ a b Birkhead, Larry (April 3, 2000). "Some radio stations bag Chicks' 'Earl'". USA Today. p. D2. Archived from the original on May 10, 2000. Retrieved June 20, 2019. Also published as "Radio Balks At Dixie Chicks' 'Goodbye Earl'". Sonicnet. April 5, 2000. Archived from the original on May 12, 2001.
  23. ^ Kawakami, Tim (August 25, 2016). "Warriors jump from KNBR to 95.7 FM the Game: Why they did it, what this means, what's next for Tom Tolbert?". Talking Points with Tim Kawakami. Bay Area News Group. Archived from the original on May 24, 2017. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  24. ^ Pizarro, Sal (May 25, 2020). "Remembering Bob Kieve, a champion for San Jose". The Mercury News. Archived from the original on May 26, 2020.
  25. ^ "Rest in Peace Randy Jones". 953 KRTY. Archived from the original on June 27, 2022. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  26. ^ "Bay Area To Lose Country With KRTY Sale". RadioInsight. March 23, 2022. Archived from the original on March 24, 2022. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  27. ^ "Country To Remain In Bay Area As KBAY And KKDV Become Bay Country". RadioInsight. April 5, 2022. Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  28. ^ "KRTY Sets FM Sign-off Date & Post Sale Plans". RadioInsight. June 3, 2022. Archived from the original on June 3, 2022. Retrieved June 3, 2022.
  29. ^ "Is A Webcaster Capable Of High Ratings In A Local Market?". RadioInsight. August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
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37°12′18″N 121°57′00″W / 37.205°N 121.950°W / 37.205; -121.950