KFMB FM

Early years/B100

What eventually became KFMB-FM began testing in 1950 from the North Park Theater on Adams Avenue. It finally signed on as a commercial operation on 100.7 MHz on September 21, 1959, airing a Beautiful Music format. In the late 1960s, the format was called "Music Only For a Woman." Station Manager Ed Peters bought the rights to syndicate the format. Soon after, Peters left and started his own company known as "Peters Productions" which syndicated the format on reel-to-reel tape to over 100 stations during the 1960s and 1970s, changing the name of the format to "Music Just For The Two Of Us."

San Diego in the early 1970s had three "beautiful music" stations and was about to gain a fourth, so KFMB AM program director Bobby Rich and station manager Paul Palmer put together a super high energy Top 40 format to challenge market leader 1170 AM KCBQ. Rich wanted to change the call letters to something with a "Q" in them to become "the FM Q" but the owners refused to break up the KFMB AM/FM/TV matched set of call signs. Although 100.7 is closer to 101 than 100, 101.5 KGB-FM had already established itself as 101KGB, so KFMB-FM became "The All New B100 FM" in March 1975 with the slogan "Better Boogie!", eventually knocking off longtime AM Top 40 powerhouse KCBQ in the Fall 1977 Arbitron ratings. B-100 was the first major market FM Top 40 station to achieve overall #1 Arbitron ratings for all listeners. The station's on air staff during its first two years included Phil Flowers, Rocket Man, Jimi Fox, Willie B. Goode, Rob Landree, Dave Conley, Bill Martin, Glen McCartney, "Shotgun" Tom Kelly, Gene Knight, Danny Wilde, Gary Kelley, Billy Pearl, Ken "Beaver Cleaver" Levine, "Just" Kevin (later Kevin Anderson), Jimmy Rogers, Christopher Lance, Terri Lynne, Uncle Fred, and of course Bobby Rich using the on-air name "Dr. Boogie". Fox, Goode and Conley left to create Ten Q (KTNQ 1020 AM) in Los Angeles after the first year.

B100 had major success in the 1980s, reinventing itself as one of the nation's first Hot AC stations, melding top 40 hits, minus some teen-oriented songs, with an adult delivery by its high-profile air staff, including "The B100 Morning Zoo" starring The Rich Brothers, which is Bobby Rich (most recently afternoons at Mix 96, Tucson), the late great Scott Kenyon, Pat Gaffey, and Frank Anthony (now at 105.7 Max FM in San Diego). The rest of the high-profile air staff during the B100 Hot AC era were Gary Kelley, Gene Knight (now at Sunny 98.1), Danny Romero (now a weatherman with ABC7, Los Angeles), with Ellen Thomas (now at KOST in Los Angeles), and John Fox (now general manager of the first and only radio station in Southern California owned by a Native American tribe, KOPA in Pala, California).

Jeff and Jer became the new morning show hosts at B100 in 1991, but would leave in April 1993 for KKLQ. Replacing them were John Lander and Jools Brandt, followed by Larry Himmel, who had also succeeded Shotgun Tom in mornings on B100 back in 1979. After Jeff and Jer left, ratings for the station began to decline.

Star 100.7

On May 16, 1994, Midwest announced that B-100 would change formats. After the announcement, the station began a 3-week stunt dubbed "The Great Radio Experiment", where the station tested formats such as All-70's Hits, Country, All-Elvis, modern rock, "Party Songs", an "MTV"-style Top 40 format, classic rock, all-Motown, and Children's music, each lasting for a day, and allowed listeners to vote for the new format. At Midnight on June 6, the station relaunched as "Star 100.7", and retained the Hot AC format, though with a more current and upbeat focus than "B-100".

"Star" was a personality-oriented station, with an initial air staff made up of Shawn Ireland and Donna Davis in mornings, Kim Morrison in middays, Dave Smiley in afternoons, Dominica in evenings, and China More in overnights. Later on, the station's air staff consisted of Jeff and Jer (who returned in May 1997) in mornings, Anita Rush in middays, current XHRM morning hosts Jagger and Kristi in afternoons (after they left for KMYI in 2002, they would be replaced with Gregg Simms, Jen Sewell and Sara Kiani), and Ricky Lopez at nights (who would later be replaced with a repeat of Jeff and Jer dubbed "Jeff and Jer Primetime"). The station also aired the Bob and Sheri syndicated morning drive show in the early morning hours for a brief period (as the show broadcasts from Charlotte, North Carolina, which is based in the Eastern Time Zone) in late 2004/early 2005.

100.7 Jack FM

"Star 100.7" continued until 9:55 AM on April 6, 2005, when the station began stunting with a 5-minute ticking clock and a mysterious voice saying "closer...closer", which ended with an alarm going off and a female announcer saying "Bye Star". At that point, "Jack FM" and its adult hits format was introduced with R.E.M.'s "It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Jeff and Jer left KFMB-FM in August 2005 and moved across town to KMYI 94.1 FM, now known as "Star 94.1". On August 2, 2010, KFMB-FM became home to the former longtime KGB-FM morning show, "Dave, Shelley and Chainsaw," often abbreviated to "The DSC." In September 2013, KFMB-FM instituted a paywall for its online webstream, which only allows listeners in the San Diego area to hear the online stream.

In January 2014, the station's sound evolved from the Adult Hits format by adding more current and recent hits, and dropped most songs recorded before 2000, other than those recorded by established Modern Rock artists such as Green Day, INXS and U2. In April 2014, Mediabase added KFMB-FM to its Hot AC panel, reflecting its shift from Adult Hits to a Modern Rock-leaning Hot AC format.

On October 6, 2015, Midwest Television announced that it had entered into a joint operating agreement with Local Media San Diego LLC, which operates three stations licensed to Tijuana but broadcasting in English for the San Diego media market: 92.5 XHRM-FM, 91.1 XETRA-FM, and 90.3 XHITZ-FM. The five stations formed an entity known as SDLocal. Management said the intent of the agreement was to "[preserve the] local ownership and operation of San Diego's top-rated radio stations". Shortly after, the paywall for the stream was lifted, with the station being allowed to be heard outside the San Diego market once again.

Morning shows on Jack: Monique and the Man; The DSC

The station conducted a nationwide search for a morning show in September 2005, with a $1,000,000 five-year contract. The winner was the Monique and the Man morning show featuring Hispanic comedian Monique Marvez and former Star 100.7 DJs Greg and Sara. Greg is the 'Man' and Sara is a co-host. The show started on January 23, 2006 and ended in 2009. As with many stations calling themselves "Jack-FM," there was no morning show until Dave, Shelly and Chainsaw took over on August 2, 2010. The show, previously on KGB-FM, helped boost KFMB-FM's morning ratings.

100.7 KFM-BFM

On November 17, 2015, KFMB-FM began airing all-Christmas music for the holiday season as "Jack Frost." On December 8, Garrett Michaels, formerly Program Director at XETRA-FM, was named KFMB-FM's new Program Director. With the announcement, there were possible hints of an upcoming format change (while morning hosts "Dave, Shelley and Chainsaw" are usually ranked in first place, particularly among listeners 25-54 years old, KFMB-FM overall was ranked #17 in the December 2015 Nielsen ratings report for the San Diego market). On December 26, 2015, at 10 AM, after playing "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" by the Ramones, KFMB-FM began stunting with a "Wheel of Formats" (which consisted of all-AC/DC, all-Bob Marley, 80's hits, all-Van Halen, outlaw country, soft AC, all-glam metal bands, all-blues, and adult standards), branded simply as "100.7", with each new format starting every day at 10 AM until January 4, when it flipped to a mainstream rock format consisting a mix of classic rock and 70s 80s new wave hits, branded as "100.7 KFM-BFM", a nod to how the station referred to its call letters in the 1980s. The first song on "KFM-BFM" was "The Spirit of Radio" by Rush.