Sales and Ultimate Conversion
Cleveland Broadcasting purchased KFAC from the Cord estate, and was itself purchased after a successful campaign by Atlantic States Industries (ASI), a subsidiary of the McGavrin-Guild "rep" company. Under ASI, KFAC ended its ban on commercial "jingles." Previous policy had been that all commercials had to be voiced by KFAC announcers. While music beds, usually classical, were OK, ad agency jingles were anathema. ASI also instituted the combo operation of broadcast consoles, so that KFAC announcers finally became radio DJs. Previously, engineers had spun the records and announcers had merely announced, either live or on tape. When time came for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license renewal, a group of challengers also applied for the license, claiming that KFAC was not serving the local African-American community. This seemed a ludicrous charge because the station never discriminated against any group in its choice of featured composers or performers.
Investigations seemed to uncover that the protesting group had challenged other station licenses for the purposes of extorting substantial amounts of money from the station owners. It is not known precisely how much money was paid by the owners of KFAC to settle a possible lawsuit, but typically when a station’s license is being contested during the renewal process, there is a slim chance of it being sold.
In 1986 a group of investors headed by Louise Heifetz (daughter-in-law of the violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz) purchased the station for around $33 million. She and her accomplice (program director Robert Goldfarb) fired most of the staff announcers in the hope that new talent would attract new listeners. The highly respected engineering staff was also laid off in the new years blood bath of 1987. Supposedly, Goldfarb had been hired to do the same for manager Wallace Smith at KUSC a few years before.
During the next three years the station's ratings declined and it was sold to Evergreen Media, who changed its format and recast it as KKBT-FM "(The Beat", which eventually moved to 100.3 FM), an R&B station. Several years ago, Ralph Guild, the top man in charge of the company that owned KFAC confided that putting the station up for sale was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made.
In 1989, the new owners donated both the KFAC call sign and the classical record library to University of Southern California Radio station KUSC, which assigned the call sign to its Santa Barbara satellite.
Today the 92.3 frequency is home to HOT 92.3 Old School and R&B. The KFAC call letters, at home on the Santa Barbara translator for KUSC for over a decade, were replaced when the station chose to have all of its affiliates have call letters ending with "SC."
Read more about this topic: KFAC (defunct)
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