KCEA (89.1 FM) is a

broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

licensed to

Atherton, California Atherton ( ) is an incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States. Its population was 6,823 as of July 2023 estimates. The town's zoning regulations permit only one single-family home per acre in new subdivisions, though smal ...

, serving the

San Francisco Peninsula The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Los Altos and Mountain View, ...

. The station broadcasts a music format featuring

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

, swing and

adult standards Adult standards (also sometimes known as the nostalgia or Big Band format) is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations. Adult standards started in the 1950s and is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly tho ...

in addition to local high school sports. KCEA is owned and operated by

Sequoia Union High School District The Sequoia Union High School District is a public union school district in the San Francisco Bay Area, primarily serving the southern San Mateo County communities of Atherton, Belmont, East Palo Alto, Ladera, San Carlos, Menlo Park, Por ...

History

In 1979,

Menlo-Atherton High School Menlo-Atherton High School (known as M-A to locals) is a four-year public high school secondary school located in Atherton, California. Menlo-Atherton is part of the Sequoia Union High School District.

founded radio station KMAH, which broadcast local music and student programming. During off hours, the station broadcast a live audio feed of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

from

Fort Point, San Francisco Fort Point, known historically as the Castillo de San Joaquín (Spanish for "Saint Joachim's Castle") is a masonry seacoast fortification located on the southern side of the Golden Gate at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. It is also the geograp ...

. KMAH became KCEA (named after "sea") in 1983 and switched to its present big band music format in order to attract a wider audience and financial support. KCEA first broadcast local high school sports on January 8, 1999, when the station broadcast a Menlo-Atherton home basketball game. The October 11, 2013 broadcast of a football game between Sequoia and Terra Nova high schools was KCEA's 500th high school sports broadcast. Frank Spinetta, a manager of the KCEA-FM and a Sequoia Union High School District employee from the 1970s through 1995, pleaded no contest in 1997 to embezzling $92,000 from the high school district, was replaced by Mike Isaacs, a

College of San Mateo College of San Mateo (CSM) is a public community college in San Mateo, California. It is part of the San Mateo County Community College District. College of San Mateo is located at the northern corridor of Silicon Valley and situated on a 153-a ...

broadcasting instructor. Late in October 2018, the

Board of Trustees discussed converting KCEA into a student run station in order to align the station closer to the district's educational mission. The

NAMM Oral History Program The NAMM Oral History Program is an oral history project and archive of recordings of interviews with people from all aspects of the music products industry, including Music store, music instrument retailers, musical instrument and product creato ...

music historian, Daniel Del Fiorentino, conducted his first interview when he worked for the KCEA radio station in 1983 to 1994. He has since then interviewed thousands of people of who have made an impact on the history of music.

References

External links

FCC History Cards for KCEA
* * {{San Francisco Radio CEA High school radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1979 1979 establishments in California Adult standards radio stations in the United States