“The Big 106.9” Isn’t Quite The Same, Is It?

KFRC is a pretty venerable set of San Francisco call letters, and they’ve been through a lot over the years. Of course, they’re most well known for a decades-long stint as the big Top 40 (and the home of Dr. Don Rose) in thecitybythebaythecitythatrocksthecitythatneversleeps, but there was a short run as a standards outlet before settling in for a long stretch as San Francisco’s oldies station. As CBS Radio started flipping their oldies stations out of the format, KFRC evolved to Classic Hits in 2005 before switching to the “Movin'” Rhythmic AC format a year later. The new Movin’ 99.7 kept the KFRC call letters but only used them in the legal ID.

Meanwhile, CBS Radio had another struggling San Francisco property to deal with. In 2005, the Big Creepy Eye dealt away the 610 frequency (and a boatload of cash) to Family Radio in exchange for Family’s big FM signal on 106.9. It was here that CBS deployed their Free FM talk format, but after 19 months of no traction, CBS’ new leadership decided something had to be done. It was May 17 of this year when the braintrust made their move, and the talk went away from 106.9 in favor of Classic Hits once more — and with the calls still in the family, it was a no-brainer on what to name it: KFRC. CBS moved the KFRC-FM call letters to 106.9 and installed KMVQ-FM as the new calls on 99.7.

Got all that?

Thanks to Nathan Fuentes, we can share several of these moves with you. You’ll get to hear a couple IDs from a 610/106.9 simulcast, as Family Radio prepared to move their religious format off the FM side. There’s a pair of Free FM IDs, two IDs from the new KFRC (one with the old call letters), and just for fun, an ID from 99.7 with their new calls.