Chak's Statement: The Official End of an Era at KLIV for News In Silicon Valley

The end of an era is now at KLIV, who for the past 25 years has been remarkable. I've realized that looking for essential information on the road is very essential. The team that woke me up and got ready for traffic is the same team that also guided me home, especially when there are incidents on the road. With the flip to music format at 10pm on June 10, 2016, that signals the beginning of "country gold," or classic country music on the radio.

KLIV has been seen many times by me on many of my trips to Walmart just across the street on Story Road in San Jose. The studios there are relatively small from the outside, but the building is very familiar for those who drove along Story Road to Little Saigon. Robert (Bob) Klive, who in turn leads Empire Broadcasting, is still living strong as one of the oldest owners of the radio station that I have respected.

Much like the game of Age of Empires series, there are many acts and/or scenes. Classic music was the first act for KLIV, followed by the big band station in the second, and all-news in the third. Flipping the switch to classic country music is the fourth act for KLIV, as it goes from all-news to partial news and mostly classic country. But what will remain with KLIV is country music accompanied by talk and informational shows in the evenings and on weekends. Occasionally, sports like the San Jose Earthquakes and San Jose State will still be on the air.

The Age of Empires game has nothing to do with KLIV's owner Empire Broadcasting, which the two do share a common name in some way, but not in terms of the way Klive wants to play the game with conflicts - instead, Klive wanted to maintain local coverage of our current events in Santa Clara County. I wanted to mention the Age of Empires game as one of my favorite games, but in such a way to express how the history process at KLIV moved from one format to the next.

Local news on the radio seemed to be losing the battle against increasing costs and decreasing advertising revenue, and KLIV is not the only station to have suffered from that fate. That has been the case at all Canadian news stations and their affiliates, forcing those to decrease news time to only one hour or less in the early evenings. This also applies to radio stations across the country, and the fate of all-news stations in the United States when listeners need to hear what's happening while on the road is up in the air. Sadly, with the change the way listeners get their news, it's going to be hard for the station to maintain the owner's wishes.

There is a big comparison between KLIV and KGO in terms of format changes and how their process went. Unlike KGO, KLIV made the move in advance before moving on to the next format. Unfortunately for KGO, their next move was made only less than a week in advance, of which that station moved away from a partial news and talk format to entertainment, angering many of their listeners and putting the blame on KGO's owner, Cumulus Media. Cumulus management has unfortunately made poor judgement in notification of viewers, and that leaves listeners with many questions about the future on local information. KLIV made the notice of change to listeners months in advance instead of doing the same method as KGO. That kept listeners better informed than what KGO did.

The only local information of news on a commercial station is KCBS-AM (740), simulcasted with KFRC-FM (106.9). Klive wants KCBS and KQED-FM radio (88.5) to step up more Santa Clara County coverage. KQED is only partially a news station, with National Public Radio (NPR) and other programs to fill in the void. However, it is going to be tough for KCBS or KQED to step up Silicon Valley news coverage with KLIV no longer operating an all-news station.

Various personalities have often woke me up and at times, laughed my mornings, especially George Sampson, who got me up to wherever I needed to be with the accompaniment of John McLeod. Originally, McLeod will remain at KLIV as he might be reading only news or doing a commercial for KLIV and KRTY, but it turned out that it was not true. McLeod is now host of the classic country music on KLIV during the midday hours and handles traffic while Randy Jones entertains the afternoon drive time hours.

KLIV has made the very difficult decision despite the listener base, but I do know that KLIV will be in very good hands as a new chapter begins with KRTY personalities like Randy Jones, Gary Scott Thomas, and many others who are big fans of country music. While KLIV has now discontinued it's news format, I hope that there will be some a return of some "secret sound" contests after a few weeks of the format change, which I enjoyed hearing viewers their guesses!

But another of my blogs focusing on current events in Silicon Valley is now online...

Original Work: Kyle Chak
E-mail: chak595301@gmail.com
Twitter: @KyleSChak
NOTE: This blog has been edited several times since the original post.