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KFOG/KFFG
City of license	San Francisco, California at 104.5 FM; Los Altos, California at 97.7 FM
Broadcast area	San Francisco Bay Area
Branding	KFOG
Slogan	World Class Rock
Frequency	104.5 and 97.7 MHz
First air date	1960s
Format	Triple-A
ERP	7,100 watts
HAAT	459 meters
Class	B
Facility ID	54770
Callsign meaning	The FOG of San Francisco
Owner	Cumulus Media
Sister stations	KNBR, KSAN
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	www.kfog.com

KFOG is an FM radio station in San Francisco, California, broadcasting simultaneously on 104.5 and sister station KFFG 97.7 FM MHz. The 97.7 transmitter is located near Cupertino, California, and serves listeners in the South Bay, San Jose, California, and Silicon Valley who are unable to get a clear signal from the 104.5 transmitter on Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

The stations' formats are classified as adult album alternative or Triple-A, an eclectic variety of blues, reggae, folk, pop, and rock music from the mid-1960s to the present, which they call "World Class Rock." Both stations are owned by Cumulus Media.

History

The station signed on in the early 1960s as KBAY and was owned by Kaiser Broadcasting, a company started by local industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.

The KFOG call letters have been around for decades, and were used when 104.5 played beautiful music. During midday on September 16, 1982, with Stray Cats' "Rock This Town" and Dave Morey at the mic, they dropped the easy listening format for a unique blend of album-oriented rock (AOR). They called it "Timeless Rock", and it featured a wide range of music, from the psychedelic sounds of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane to newer artists such as Prince, Eurythmics and the Thompson Twins. They avoided more commercial bands such as Loverboy, which were widely played on many other AOR stations at the time. KFOG's specialty programming included the nightly "Psychedelic Psupper" and the "Sunday Night Idiot Show", which featured 1950s oldies. KFOG was heavily inspired by San Francisco's freeform rock radio heritage, dating back to KSAN.

150px A variation of KFOG's original logo

When KFOG went on the air, the Bay Area was deluged with AOR stations. KMEL was the established, tightly-formatted AOR station that had been playing rock since 1977. KRQR was the hard rocker in town. And KQAK was the newcomer, with a friendly, loosely programmed, personality-driven alternative rock/new wave format. There were also two other rock stations in the South Bay - KSJO and KOME. And one San Francisco rocker, KSFX dropped out of the format in May of that year to switch to news/talk. Of all six Bay Area rock stations that were on the air in late 1982, KFOG is the only one that remains to this day.

The station has evolved over the years, but has now been airing an eclectic rock format from the transmitter on Sutro Tower for more than twenty-five years.

KFOG Programming and Promotions

KFOG has developed a reputation for being devoted to their community of listeners, whom they affectionately call "Fogheads." A prime example is the weekday morning show from 6 to 10 Pacific Standard time. Prize giveaways (usually concert tickets) are routine, and the guests (including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who drops by about once a month) candidly field questions from callers and e-mails. The station also gives registered Fogheads first crack at tickets to private concerts and exclusive events.

The station also holds a popular outdoor concert, KFOG KaBoom, at San Francisco's Piers 30 and 32 each May. This is followed by a nighttime fireworks show synchronized to a soundtrack. The extravagant fireworks display draws over 350,000 people. The lineup for the 2009 edition included Los Lonely Boys, Susan Tedeschi, and Chuck Prophet.

Many of the concerts KFOG sponsors are also recorded for KFOG's "Live from the Archives", a massive library of live performances that gets tapped once a year for a limited-edition CD called KFOG Live From the Archives. No more than 35,000 copies of each volume are pressed, and all of the proceeds are donated to Bay Area Food Banks. Volume 16 was released in November 2009.

KFOG also has a history of playing various songs at the same time each week. On Friday afternoons at 5:00 PM PST, the station always broadcasts the song "Smoke Two Joints", playing a version by either The Toyes or Sublime.

In 2002 KFOG was the first in the nation to put its music on iTunes & on HD Radio. KFOG also streams its programming live over the Internet worldwide at www.kfog.com. There is a foghorn sound effect heard from time to time.

Notable personalities and shows

• KFOG KaBoom
• "Big" Rick Stuart is the DJ on weekday evenings. Thursday evenings is KFOG's New Releases Thursday.
• Rosalie Howarth: Sunday mornings, and Sunday evening format includes: "Acoustic Sunrise and Acoustic Sunset" syndicated across the United States: Putumayo World Music Hour
• Weekends include: The House of Blues Hour, The KFOG Sunday Night Jam, The Putumayo World Music Hour.
• 10@10 is one of KFOG's most popular features, broadcast at 10 a.m. and repeated at 10 p.m. daily, with a Saturday morning marathon replaying all five shows that week. The general theme is "10 great songs from 1 great year," but the show also occasionally features vertical samplers from a number of years, as well as other special themes like Harry Potter, and "Hits from Hell" on Friday the 13th. The show was hosted for many years by Dave Morey and introduced by Saturday Night Live announcer Don Pardo. Morey retired as KFOG's morning jock in 2008 but continued to host 10@10 from Michigan until May 2009, when the show was handed over to mid-day host Annalisa.

External links

• KFOG Website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KFOG
• Radio Locator information on KFOG
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for KFOG