KREV (92.7 MHz) is an FM radio station licensed to Alameda, California, and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned by Golden State Broadcasting LLC, presently a debtor in possession. The station was placed into receivership in July 2020, and was subsequently operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) for nine months in 2021 by Christian broadcaster, VCY America. The LMA ended January 31, 2022 after a bankruptcy court ordered possession and control of the station returned to Golden State Broadcasting.
 | |
| Broadcast area | San Francisco-Oakland, California |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 92.7 MHz |
| Branding | Pirate Radio 92.7 |
| Programming | |
| Format | Dance |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| History | |
First air date | August 1, 1959 (as KJAZ) |
Former call signs | KJAZ (1959-1994) KJAZ-FM (1994-1995) KZSF (1995-1998) KZSF-FM (1998-1999) KXJO (1999-2002) KPTI (2002-2004) KBTB (5/2004-10/2004) KNGY (2004-2009) |
Call sign meaning | REVolution (former station branding) |
| Technical information | |
| Facility ID | 36029 |
| Class | A |
| ERP | 6,000 watts |
| HAAT | 100 meters (330 ft) |
| Links | |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
KREV has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 6,000 watts. The transmitter was formerly located atop of Bellaire Tower in the city's Russian Hill neighborhood. It is now on a shared tower on Candlestick Hill in Bayview Park, San Francisco. The station's radio studios are in the Visitacion Valley district of San Francisco.[1]
History
Jazz music as KJAZ
As KJAZ from August 1, 1959, to July 31, 1994, the station aired a jazz format. Founded by Pat Henry, KJAZ prided itself on broadcasting only jazz music, and a 1965 station brochure proclaimed KJAZ "Northern California's first and only full time jazz station".
In 1994, KJAZ was sold after then-owner Ron Cowan, in a financial crisis at the time, deemed the station unprofitable. Following the demise of the jazz format, some KJAZ programmers and announcers made their way to KCSM.
The KJAZ call sign has been subsequently used by various FM radio stations around the country and is currently the call sign for a silent station in Point Comfort, Texas owned by Fort Bend Broadcasting of Austin, Texas.
Rock music as KXJO
Though listeners mounted a fundraising effort to keep KJAZ on the air (by some reports raising $1.5 million), the station was sold in 1994, and on July 31, KJAZ was converted to a Spanish-language music format branded as "La Z"; it would be the first of several format changes the station would go through in the mid- to late-1990s. In 1999 the station was flipped to a simulcast of the rock format of KSJO in San Jose under the call letters KXJO.
92.7 Party, and Power 92.7
On May 26, 2002, the 92.7 frequency's history as a dance music outlet would begin under the call letters KPTI as "92.7 Party" under then-owner Spanish Broadcasting System. SBS sold the station less than two years later, and on April 15, 2004 the new owners flipped the format to mainstream urban as KBTB, "Power 92.7, The Beat of the Bay." The new format debuted with 48 straight hours of songs by Tupac Shakur, a rapper from Oakland.[2] After the new format failed to attract an audience and controversy arose between them and rival KMEL, which made headlines in the press, the station was sold again.
Energy 92.7
KBTB was acquired by Flying Bear Media, backed by Alta Communications and Tailwind Capital. CEO Joe Bayliss flipped the station back to dance music on October 2, 2004 as "Energy 92.7".[3] The station kept the KBTB call letters for several months before changing to KNGY and kept the "Beat of the Bay" slogan for over a year before changing to "Pure Dance" in 2006.
On July 17, 2005, KNGY moved its signal from its old tower on Russian Hill to the Sutro Tower, improving coverage in the South Bay, but later changed back to their old site due to signal issues. The effect was clear to South Bay listeners, who received common interference between KNGY and KTOM, a country-format station from the Salinas area. In areas around the North Bay where line-of-site propagation was weak, listeners similarly received interference between KNGY and KZSQ, a hot AC station from the Sonora, California area. Energy 92.7 was also heard on Comcast Digital Cable throughout the Bay Area on digital cable channel 964 and live online through the station's website.
KNGY was a reporter to Billboard Magazine's Dance/Mix Show Airplay panel and was by many reports the most-listened-to dance/electronic radio station on the West Coast. "Energy 92.7" offered a current-based mix of dance music, with the addition of Top 40, R&B remixes, disco and club classics from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. It also broadcast sophisticated and mood-enhanced tracks including down-tempo groove, future jazz, electronic rock and chillout beats.
Under Bayliss, KNGY quickly built a reputation as "The Gay Station", the first commercial radio station that appealed openly to the Bay Area's large and highly influential gay community,[4] with a number of on-air DJs — and even a sportscaster — who were openly gay. The station also became heavily involved in numerous gay-community events, including San Francisco's annual Gay Pride Parade in June. (After Energy's demise in 2009, the station's morning show "Fernando and Greg in the Morning", which was widely popular with fans, moved to KMVQ.)
In December 2005, former KLLC program director John Peake was hired as Energy's new program director, filling a vacancy left by original PD Chris Shebel. Prior to coming to San Francisco (pre-KLLC), Peake had been the PD of influential Top 40 KRBE/Houston, Texas, a station that was also known for adding dance cuts into their traditional playlist. In July 2008, Peake resigned from the PD job at KNGY and was succeeded by Don Parker who, like Peake, also has credentials in programming dance-leaning stations as the PD of Rhythmic contemporary outlet KKFR/Phoenix during its dance-intensive days in the late 1980s and mid-1990s.
On weekends, KNGY aired a two-hour show called "Ghetto House Radio" every Saturday at midnight. The program featured a house/dance music mix with a mix of rap and "ghetto" music.
In February 2009, KNGY added former KGO talk show host Karel to their lineup. His program aired from 9 p.m. to midnight Monday through Thursdays; this was the only time that the station did not play music. However, less than five months later, Karel's program was dropped.[5]
92.7 REV FM
In July 2009, Flying Bear announced that KNGY was being sold to Ed Stolz's Royce International Broadcasting for $6.5 million. AllAccess reported that the station was to become a CHR-format station with the new callsign KREV.[6] According to a published report,[7] Flying Bear has beens forced to sell the station after it was unable to renegotiate the terms of a $6 million loan held by a subsidiary of Wells Fargo Bank.
In September 2009, KNGY's on-air and production staff were given notice that they were being laid off, and PD Don Parker gave a short farewell to listeners on the afternoon of September 10. Energy's final song was "Walk Away" by Kelly Clarkson.[8] At 9:08 pm (PDT) that day, after a few false starts, KNGY's format was changed to CHR as "92.7 REV FM".[9][10] The first song under the new format was P!nk's "Get the Party Started." The flip to Top 40 marked KREV's entry into what was an already interesting CHR race in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it had to compete for listeners with CBS Radio's Mainstream Top 40 KMVQ, iHeartMedia's Top 40 powerhouse KYLD and their Urban CHR sister KMEL both of whom had better signal coverage than KREV. KREV's playlist, station imaging and web site were essentially identical to that of sister station KFRH in Las Vegas. On October 12, 2009, the once-controversial morning show The Dog House returned to the Bay Area airwaves on KREV.
To fill the hole left open by the flip of KNGY, KMVQ flipped the HD2 sub-channel to dance as "Pulse Radio" in 2010.
ASCAP lawsuit and attempted Receivership sale
From April 2016 to June 2018, on behalf of WB Music and other music companies, ASCAP successfully sued Royce International Broadcasting Corp. and its subsidiaries for copyright infringement. The result was a $330,000 judgment, increased to over $1.3 million with attorney fees and sanctions. [11]
After Stolz either could not or would not to pay the judgment (reports varied on which was the case), KREV was transferred into a court-ordered receivership controlled by broker Larry Patrick on July 6, 2020, along with KFRH and KRCK-FM in the Palm Springs market.[12]
The Court Order appointing Patrick authorized him to take control of the stations, and to "solicit offers for the sale of Defendants’ Radio Stations’ assets." However, that appointment order did not give Mr. Patrick control of the business entities themselves.[11] On December 30, 2020, it was announced that VCY America would acquire the three stations.[13]
The December 28, 2020 Asset Purchase Agreement entered into between Patrick and VCY was criticized in the industry for being a "fire sale price" of $6 million for all three FM stations, and also because the contract was signed by "W. Lawrence Patrick, solely in his capacity as court-appointed receiver for Silver State Broadcasting LLC, Golden State Broadcasting LLC, and Major Market Radio LLC," an apparent contradiction of the court order language stating that stated Patrick was the appointed receiver only for the three stations themselves.
On March 15, 2021, after Judge Jesus Bernal denied Stolz' bid to end the receivership and have the stations returned to him, VCY America began operating the three stations under an LMA while the sale of the stations is being finalized.[14] The LMA, which cost VCY America $5,000 each month for the three stations, was also criticized for being underpriced. A comparable LMA for a single San Francisco FM radio station was estimated at $80,000 per month.
On January 31, 2022, federal bankruptcy judge August B. Landis ordered Patrick to turn control of KREV and Stolz's two other FM stations back to Stolz's companies. [15]
On October 28, 2022, KREV resumed operations with a Dance format, under the name "Pirate Radio 92.7".[16] Stolz has subsequently made statements indicating a willingness to sell the stations to fund his bankruptcy reorganization plan, no sales agreements had been filed with the FCC six months later.
References
- ^ "92.7 :: The Revolution :: San Francisco ::". 927rev.com. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ Arnold, Eric K. (October 6, 2004). "Fighting The Power". East Bay Express. Retrieved July 3, 2010.
- ^ Fong-Torres, Ben (October 17, 2004). "Radio Waves". San Francisco Chronicle. p. PK-19. Retrieved July 3, 2010.
- ^ Bajko, Matthew (November 24, 2005). "A gay home on the radio dial". Bay Area Reporter. p. 1. Retrieved January 7, 2011.
- ^ "Radio KRL". Archived from the original on 2009-03-15. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
- ^ AllAccess [@AllAccess] (10 September 2009). "Dance KNGY To Flip To Top 40 As KREV (http://digg.com/u1CJ6J)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ "Bay Area Reporter :: Article.php". Ebar.com. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-10-06. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Whiting, Sam (September 14, 2009). "Energy 92.7 goes from gay-oriented to mainstream". The San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ "People: Staff canned at S.F.'s Energy 92.7 - San Jose Mercury News". Archived from the original on 2012-09-27. Retrieved 2009-09-14.
- ^ a b Baker, Alex (15 July 2021). "Ed Stolz: Off the Canvas, Fighting Back in Legal Brawl Over FM Radio Stations". Pmjmp.org. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "Ed Stolz Avoids Jail; Makes Last Ditch Attempt To Retain Stations". Radioionsight.com. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ Venta, Lance (30 December 2020). "VCY America Acquires Ed Stolz' Las Vegas, Palm Springs & San Francisco FMs From Receivership". Radio Insight. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
- ^ "VCY America To Begin LMA Of Three Stations From Stolz' Receivership". Radioinsight.com. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ Baker, Alex (1 February 2022). "Huge Win For Ed Stolz! Radio Stations Ordered Back Into His Control". Pmjmp.org. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
- ^ "KREV San Francisco Returns As Dance Pirate Radio 92.7". RadioInsight. Retrieved 2022-11-11.
External links
- KCSM Scores Old KJAZ Library at the Wayback Machine (archived March 17, 2006)
- In the Spirit of KJAZ
- Energy 92.7 Weekly Charts
- U.S. Dance Radio Post
- U.S. Dance Radio Megamix
- Facility details for Facility ID KREV ({{{2}}}) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
- {{{2}}} in Nielsen Audio's FM station database