KYAA (1200 AM) is a

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 ...

broadcasting a

Catholic radio Christian radio refers to Christian media radio formats that focus on Christian religious broadcasting or various forms of Christian music. Many such formats and programs include contemporary Christian music, gospel music, sermons, radio dramas, ...

format. It is licensed to

Soquel, California Soquel (; Ohlone: ''Sokel'') is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, California, located on the northern coast of Monterey Bay. The population was 9,980 at the 2020 census. History ''Osocalis'' was th ...

, and serves the

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles (120 km), accessible via California S ...

, Santa Cruz and San Jose areas. The station is owned by Relevant Radio, Inc. By day, KYAA is powered at 25,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s non-directional. But 1200 AM is a clear channel frequency reserved for Class A WOAI

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

. So to avoid interference, KYAA reduces power at night to 10,000 watts and uses a

directional antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna that radiates or receives greater radio wave power in specific directions. Directional antennas can radiate radio waves in beams, when greater concentration of radiation in a certain directio ...

History

Between 2001 and early 2013, the station played a wide variety of

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

music from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and was the only oldies station in that time period in the Monterey Bay Area. Former Los Angeles KHJ boss jock Don Murray (Carlson) began the station along with radio veteran Denis 'Catfish' Miller . The station branded as KYA, minus the additional 'A', as a tribute to the noted

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

station in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in the 1960s and 1970s with the same call letters (now

KSFB KSFB (1260 AM) is a radio station licensed to San Francisco, California. It broadcasts Relevant Radio, a Roman Catholic radio format, to the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. It was previously known as KYA (AM) until 1983, and KO ...

). Murray and Miller used the old KYA

jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meanings that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually ...

package, and the station sounded similar to the way it had before. Local radio veteran David Mars also worked on the station for a time. The station was simulcast on FM and AM and reached its peak of success in 2004. It was sold back to Salinas' Wolfhouse broadcasting after a failed LMA by People's Radio, and the format was dropped in favor of a more

urban contemporary Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contemporary r ...

and

hip hop music Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music Music genre, genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African Americans, African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide r ...

format, ending KYA and its Top 40 roots. Later, AM 1200 adopted the "

Music of Your Life Music of Your Life is an American syndicated music radio format featuring adult standards music. First created by recording executive Al Ham in 1978, the format achieved popularity in the 1980s among AM radio stations in the United States and Ca ...

" syndicated format. People's Radio, Inc. tried to sell the station for quite some time without success. It donated KYAA to IHR Educational Broadcasting, which aired its

Immaculate Heart Radio IHR Educational Broadcasting dba Immaculate Heart Radio operated a network of radio stations that aired Roman Catholic religious programming. The network provided a 24-hour a day schedule consisting of call-in talk shows, interviews and broad ...

Roman Catholic religion format. The license to cover to IHR was granted by the

U.S. Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains ju ...

on July 29, 2013. KYAA flipped to the

Relevant Radio Relevant Radio (corporate name Relevant Radio, Inc.) is a radio network in the United States, mainly broadcasting talk radio and religious programming involving the Catholic Church. Relevant Radio broadcasts "talk radio for Catholic life" over a ...

branding when IHR Educational Broadcasting and Starboard Media Foundation completed their merger on July 3, 2017.

References

External links

Relevant Radio stations YAA {{California-radio-station-stub