Broadcast area San Francisco Bay Area Class B Affiliations Independent Frequency 1170 kHz Format World music Area San Francisco Bay Area | First air date October 13, 1946 Facility ID 41339 Sister stations KSJO City of license San Jose Owner Universal Media Access Branding DESI 1170 AM | |
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Slogan The Largest And Most Powerful Asian Indian Radio Station In The U.S. | ||
KLOK 1170 AM ("Desi 1170 AM") is a radio station broadcasting a World Ethnic format. Licensed to San Jose, California, U.S., the station serves the San Francisco Bay Area. Since June 2009, KLOK 1170 AM has run a 24/7 South Asian format. With 50,000 watts during the day, its signal covers the entire San Francisco Bay Area.
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KLOK has been granted an FCC construction permit to increase night power to 9,000 watts, becoming a triplex at the KSJX/KZSF site.
History
E. L. Barker founded KLOK and began broadcasting on October 13, 1946. Initially the station broadcast with a 5,000 watt daytime signal, later adding a 1,000 watt night time signal in 1952. The power increased to 10,000 watts daytime and 5,000 watts night time on June 29, 1964. Mr. Barker sold KLOK Radio to Davis Broadcasting (which later became the Weaver Davis Fowler Corporation) in 1967. On August 10, 1969, KLOK increased the daytime power to its current 50,000 watts. These historical dates are listed on a plaque near the entrance of the station's former studios (and current transmitter site) in San Jose.
In the late sixties and seventies, the station broadcast "oldies" pop music eventually changing into Adult Contemporary. One of the popular DJs in the late 1960s was Jon Badeaux. By the early 1980s, KLOK's parent company also owned KLOK-FM (San Francisco), KWIZ (Santa Ana) and KFIG (Fresno). According to Ad Week, all five stations eventually shared the "Yes/No Radio" format which was developed by KLOK Executive VP and GM, Bill Weaver. This allowed the station to leverage branding, advertising, and jingles. In this format, listeners would respond to the "KLOK Yes/No Music Poll" by calling into the station and voting "Yes" if they would like the song added to the playlist or "No" to have a certain song removed from the playlist.
KLOK switched to a Spanish language format on August 9, 1988, after the station was sold to the owners of KBRG for $5M. The station maintained this format until 2009, when its sale by Univision Radio to Principle Broadcasting Network was followed by a change to a format billed as "New International Community Radio" generally consisting of South Asian music.
Current programming
KLOK uses a community radio format featuring brokered programming, largely serving the local Indian community.