KNEW (AM)

KNEW (960 AM) is an American radio station licensed to Oakland, California, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned by iHeartMedia and offers a mix of sports and conservative talk programming. Most of its shows come from Fox Sports Radio and Premiere Networks, and it also broadcasts Athletics baseball games. The station's studios are in the SoMa district of San Francisco.

KNEW transmits with 5,000 watts using a special three-tower directional antenna system at all times. Its transmitter is located in Oakland at the eastern end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The station was also previously available on the HD Radio digital subchannel of 103.7 KOSF-HD2.

History

KFWM and KROW

On July 8, 1925, the radio station signed on as KFWM. It was first owned by the Oakland Educational Society. The Oakland Post-Enquirer wanted its own station to compete with the Oakland Tribune’s KLX. The station changed its name to KROW in June 1930 and kept these call letters until 1959. It was a full-service station that helped start the career of comedian Phyllis Diller and supported the work of “the world’s greatest disc jockey” Don Sherwood, before he worked at KSFO.

In 1947, the station built a new transmitter on a 20-acre island rented from the Port of Oakland. The new transmitter increased its power from 1,000 watts to 5,000 watts all day.

KABL

This station is famous for being KABL, which followed KROW and was one of the first beautiful music stations in the United States. It was owned in the 1950s by radio pioneer Gordon McLendon. McLendon wanted a station in the San Francisco area, and 960 KROW seemed perfect because of its good signal in the region.

McLendon had success with Top 40 stations, but his original plan for KROW was to start a similar youthful format. After visiting the area and finding many Top 40 stations already, he decided to try something different. They used ideas from KIXL, a beautiful music station in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, which was popular even though it only broadcast during the day. They planned to start a similar style on KROW using KIXL’s method of playing familiar music in blocks. The new call sign would be KABL, short for San Francisco’s famous cable cars.

In early May 1959, KROW started playing the song “Gila Monster” on repeat. This was the theme song from a horror film that McLendon helped make that year. People thought KROW would become a Top 40 station like McLendon’s KLIF in Dallas, WAKY in Louisville, or KILT in Houston. But McLendon surprised everyone by launching KABL as a beautiful music station. KABL attracted older listeners who did not like rock and roll. It quickly became the most popular station in San Francisco and stayed near the top for years.

KABL’s format

As KABL, the station played a mix of easy listening music with strings and orchestras, light classics, and some Latin music for evenings. KABL was known for poetic stories about life in San Francisco, a harp playing between songs, and a cable car bell to signal news.

Licensed to Oakland and with a transmitter near the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, KABL often bent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules about station identification and city of license. Instead of saying “Oakland/San Francisco,” KABL tried to act like it was based in San Francisco. It used phrases like “KABL Oakland, serving San Francisco on your San Francisco radio dial, in the air, everywhere over San Francisco.” This upset FCC officials, who fined the station and told all broadcasters they must serve the community they are licensed to.

The final years

In 1997, the station changed to an adult standards format of traditional pop and big band music. For a short time, it added a nightly show of swing/dance music inspired by the “swing dancing/zoot suits” trend of the late 1990s. The show featured bands like Brian Setzer’s and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, along with classic songs like Glenn Miller’s “In The Mood”. The show did not last long.

KABL also played the syndicated When Radio Was Old-Time Radio series, but moved its time slot around. In 2000, KABL briefly changed to a 1960s-1970s soft rock format, but switched back to older music after listeners asked for it. Later, KABL sometimes added more modern soft pop-rock music like Peter & Gordon, Dusty Springfield, Kenny Rogers, and Air Supply.

On September 28, 2004, 960 AM stopped the adult standards shows and the KABL name. The KABL name later appeared on 92.1 FM in Walnut Creek, California, but that station did not reach far and changed to adult contemporary music in July 2005.

KABL reborn on the Internet

KABL then started broadcasting as an internet radio station. This continued until January 31, 2007, when Clear Channel Communications stopped KABL’s online music.

On June 1, 2007, with permission from Clear Channel, the Bay Area Radio Museum began a tribute to KABL online. It featured beautiful music, easy listening, adult standards, big bands, traditional pop, and middle-of-the-road music to remember the styles KABL played during its forty years on the air. The old website now leads to iHeartRadio.

Progressive talk as KQKE and KKGN

On September 28, 2004, KABL was replaced by a new station with the call letters KQKE and a progressive talk format, called “960 The Quake”. Its slogans were “The Bay Area Home of Air America”, “Talk Radio for the Rest of Us” and “Talk Radio from the Left”. The station played shows from Dial Global like Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann, and others. It also had local weekend shows. One Sunday night show, Shake!, was for the Bay Area’s gay and lesbian community. The show also played on co-owned KLSD in San Diego until November 2007.

In 2006, KQKE added a local morning show with political satirist Will Durst and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Keeping it Real with Will and Willie aired from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. The show ended its regular broadcasts on September 29, 2006. The program director said the pair would still do special shows and events for the station.

John Scott became AM operations manager for KQKE and KNEW in 2007, adding new shows and features. He was the last local manager, as now Clear Channel corporate handles these duties.

In 2009, the station added another weekend show, An Organic Conversation, on Saturdays at 10 a.m. PST. It was presented by Helge Hellberg, executive director of Marin Organic, and Mark Mulcahy, organic produce consultant. The show discussed ecology and ideas about organic food and holistic health.

The Progressive News Hour with John Scott used to air weekdays from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m., giving local and national news, weather, and traffic. After Will and Willie ended, Stephanie Miller’s morning show took the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. slot on KQKE. The updated The Progressive News moved to 4–6 p.m. and focused more on the Bay Area, with more interviews and local news, and fewer repeated national stories.

"AM 960 The Quake" was not related to KQAK, a San Francisco station that broadcast from 1982 to 1985 and also called itself "The Quake". However, Paul "Lobster" Wells worked for both “Quake” stations, serving as producer and on-air contributor for KQKE’s former morning show.

KKGN

On August 13, 2007, Clear Channel changed the KQKE call sign to KKGN, rebranding as “Green 960” with programming focused on environmental issues.

KNEW

On January 3, 2012, Clear Channel changed KKGN to KNEW and switched to a broader talk format. This was part of reorganizing talk shows in Clear Channel’s San Francisco stations. While mostly progressive talk during the day, KNEW also played the Glenn Beck Program in the mornings and The Dave Ramsey Show in the afternoons.

On January 2, 2014, Rush Limbaugh’s show moved from KKSF to KNEW. At that point, KNEW stopped all progressive talk and changed to conservative talk, calling itself “The Patriot”.

Affiliation with Bloomberg Radio

On September 29, 2014, KNEW stopped conservative talk and began carrying business talk shows from New York City-based Bloomberg Radio. Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity’s shows moved to KSFO. On July 30, 2020, KNEW made an agreement with the Oakland Athletics to broadcast their games for the rest of the 2020 season, after originally choosing only online streaming. It remained the team’s main flagship station through 2024. The "A's Cast" service, which started on TuneIn and was meant to be the Bay Area’s home for Athletics broadcasts, moved to iHeartRadio as part of the deal.

Sports Talk & More

KNEW’s ten-year agreement with Bloomberg L.P. ended on September 30, 2024, and the station began telling listeners to use Bloomberg’s app for their shows starting October 1. On September 27, 2024, iHeart announced that after the Bloomberg agreement ended, KNEW would change to a mix of sports and talk, called “iHeart Sports Talk and More”. The station would air the Fox Sports Radio national shows from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and talk shows from Premiere Networks the rest of the day (since KGMZ-FM already had Fox Sports Radio’s nighttime shows for the Bay Area).

Athletics baseball games would stay on KNEW even after the team moved to Sacramento in 2025 before their long-term relocation to Las Vegas. This was part of an agreement that made KSTE—an iHeartMedia station in Sacramento—the team’s new flagship station. The "A's Cast" stream on iHeartRadio would also continue to broadcast the games.