The Voice of San Jose

Originally appeared in issue 5.4, “Form,” 2013.

Bob Kieve has been in a love affair for almost three-quarters of a century. Even at the age of 91, Kieve nourishes that love as president of Empire Broadcasting, which owns KLIV-AM, a news radio station, and Hot Country 95.3 KRTY in San Jose.

The San Jose segment of this love affair began in 1967 when Kieve bought radio stations with business partner James M. Trayhern Jr. Although programming has transformed through the decades, today KLIV is Silicon Valley’s only all-news radio station.

Back in 1939, when Kieve was a freshman at Harvard University, he started working for the college radio station and quickly fell in love with it. “I thought, ‘Gee, that’s sexy,’ and I went for it.”

After graduating in 1943 with a degree in English literature, he found a way to continue that love affair—he wanted to travel, use his ability to speak German and work in radio. So he signed up with the US war effort, where he was promptly sent to Spain and worked in the Office of War Information. The fact that he didn’t speak Spanish was irrelevant. “I wanted to get involved with my love, radio,” Kieve says.

He spent three and a half years in Madrid with propaganda programming during the war and later helped start Madrid’s first Top 40 radio station. To this day, Kieve says, “I am known as the father of Top 40 in Madrid.”

A brief detour from the radio had him at the front door of history. Thanks to his boss in Madrid, who went on to be chief speechwriter during Dwight Eisenhower’s campaign, Kieve landed in Washington. “I was the guy who had a very important job. I was the guy who drafted letters to people who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaries.” Copies of letters that Kieve composed, marked in Eisenhower’s handwriting, adorn Kieve’s office walls. “Eisenhower edited them. He wanted it his way.”

After serving under press secretary James C. Hagerty in the early 1950s, Kieve returned to local radio in New York state, in “Rottenchester,” as he put it. After several years, when that station was sold, he and a couple of coworkers decided to buy their own radio station. “We didn’t know where the hell we were going to get one,” he says. They got word that one was available “somewhere near San Francisco.” That “somewhere” was San Jose, and he has continued in radio ever since.

A now-familiar KLIV voice was on the air back then. “John McLeod was the only person sitting in the studio on July 1, 1967, when I first took the key and opened the radio station,” Kieve says. Today, McLeod reports weekday traffic from 6 to 10 am and 3 to 7 pm. Empire Broadcasting now has 50 full- and part-time employees.

The programming has changed over the years. First, surfer music (think Beach Boys) led the play list, then Top 40 and disco. At one point, “the music of your life” had its turn (that translates into Sinatra and ballads; “That didn’t work,” Kieve recalls), and eventually, news radio.

The news radio format has stuck since 1982, concentrating on San Jose news, weather, traffic, and sports. KLIV broadcasts all San Jose Earthquakes games as well as San Jose State University football and basketball. “It’s working, but it’s not a money maker,” Kieve concedes. “KLIV is a station that we like to see break even. We’re trying to establish ourselves as the San Jose station. If we’re going to go all news, we better have a niche.”

Right now, that niche is everything San Jose. Approximately every seven minutes during the day, KLIV broadcasts live local traffic reports. “Look out for a garbage can on the first lane,” one recent report shared.

“Through [radio] you can communicate with a large number of people in a community and hopefully have some impact.”

A segment called Economy and Silicon Valley airs weekdays around 55 past the hour, from 5:55 am to 9:55 pm and various times on weekends. Find out about the local pollen count at 7:45 am weekdays, and stock reports that focus on Silicon Valley stocks air weekdays at approximately 25 minutes past the hour from 7:25 am to 6:25 pm. There’s even news about produce about 43 past the hour from 9 am to 6 pm weekdays, when Phil Cosentino from J+P Farms presents tips and information about fruits and vegetables during The Produce Report.

Kieve broadcasts his own particular views in his commentaries, which end with, “This is Robert Kieve, and that’s a personal opinion.” His commentaries air on KLIV, KARA, and KRTY in San Jose, perhaps once a week, sometimes three times a week—really, whenever inspiration strikes. Recent topics have included the gentlemen’s club downtown, Cindy Chavez, pension reform, local airports, and his own pet peeve, signs. “My big issue is signage. One of

the mistakes our city and county in general, make is that they restrict signage. They’re restricting commerce.”

Today, even after 74 years in the business, Kieve does not have all of the answers and ponders the future of radio. “It’s going to have to morph in some way because of the presence of the Internet,” he says. To that end, Empire Broadcasting has embraced the World Wide Web and has three Internet-only stations: head to everybodysmusic.com, where you’ll find Beethoven Only, KRTY Classic (country), and Big Band Central.

“I was looking for something at the time. I realized it was possible to have other radio stations to take advantage of the Internet. Wouldn’t it be sexy to have all Beethoven?” He says that station has more listeners tuning in from Europe than it does here in the United States.

So why does he love radio? “The fact that through it you can communicate with a large number of people in a community and hopefully have some impact.”

Kieve’s own personal impact won’t end anytime soon, despite turning 92 in November. “I really don’t have my eye on retiring. What the hell would I do?”