KBPA (103.5 MHz, "103.5 Bob FM") is a commercial FM radio station licensed to San Marcos, Texas and serving the Greater Austin metropolitan area. The station is owned by Emmis Communications and uses the slogan "We play anything." Its format is adult hits, similar to other Bob FM stations across the country. Unlike some adult hits stations, KBPA uses DJs.
KBPA's transmitter is located off Jack C. Hays Trail in Buda, Texas. Its studios and offices are located along Interstate 35 in North Austin. Rhythmic contemporary/Dance music can be heard on KBPA's HD-2 channel, known as 'Mega 103-5 HD-2', also streaming on the internet.
The station signed on the air on June 1, 1971 at 103.7 FM as KRMH. The station was known as "Good Karma," a suitable name for a progressive rock station on the fringe of Austin ("Broadcasting from beautiful downtown Buda!") in its "Hippy-Dippy" age. It was licensed to San Marcos on 103.7 MHz. KRMH was owned by R. Miller Hicks (RMH) (Hence, the call letters). The station was one of the few to broadcast in Quadraphonic stereo.
Later sold to the Wendall Mayes Interests (which also owned 1490 AM KNOW) and renamed KCSW-FM.
Later both AM and FM sold to the Hicks family (no relation to R. Miller Hicks) (Family of well known investors Steve and Tom Hicks.) The station was renamed KEYI-FM (Key 103) with an adult contemporary format. Station eventually sold to Bob Sinclair of Sinclair Communications. His firm was in a partnership with a local concern, the LBJ Company, under the name "LBJS." Since then the Johnson family sold their interest to an Indianapolis based firm, Emmis Communications. The new partnership was named Emmis Austin Radio Broadcasting Co., LP. The station moved from 103.7 FM to 103.5 FM in 1987.
Prior to becoming Bob FM, KBPA (then KEYI) was branded as Oldies 103, playing a much tighter playlist of Motown and 1960s rock. When the switch took place on August 20, 2004, there was an initial outrage from loyal listeners [1] angered by the loss of the only full-time oldies station in Austin. Since that time a competing Austin station now features the oldies format on its secondary HD radio channel and an FM translator.
In 2009, KBPA brought back KXMG's former Dance Top 40 format and placed it on its HD2 channel, calling it "Mega 103-5 HD-2." In 2010 the format returned to the terrestrial broadcasting airwaves as a simulcast, broadcasting on translator K288FJ at 105.5 FM in Bastrop, Texas. In November 2010 the HD2 signal began simulcasting over the air on 102.7 (K274AX), which is licensed to Austin and can be heard within the central business area. That simulcast ended on December 13, 2010 at 12:06 AM, with the translator going silent. At around 9 AM that day K274AX switched to a simulcast of adult album alternative-formatted KGSR 93.3 FM Cedar Park, Texas.
Krash Kelly
Evan
Veronica Cruise
Michael Block (KRMH-FM Program Director)
Joel Block (KRMH-FM -former host of Star Date and Earth and Sky)
Michael Taylor (KRMH-FM - later KZEW-FM, Dallas)
Fred Rhodes (KRMH-FM - later KVUE-TV, Austin, KTBC-TV, Austin, KHOU-TV, Houston and KTVI-TV, St. Louis, Houston City Magazine, now an attorney in Houston)
Bill Harwell (now at KUT Austin)
Tom Quarles (deceased)
Leonard Liss
Jim Lucher
Joe Fiorillo
Nick Koster
