A popular Seattle radio station has bought the Bay Area’s 92.7 FM station (currently known as 92.7 The Hu$tle), and will start broadcasting their indie rock stylings next week.

In recent decades, the Bay Area radio station known as 92.7 FM has changed formats about as often as their DJs changed their socks. Founded in 1959, it had a strong 35-year run as the jazz station KJAZ. But over the last 20 or so years, that station has switched to the techno station Party 92.7, EDM station Energy 92.7 (which was briefly quite good with Fernando & Greg, until the station fired them), station pop station REV FM, and most recently, hip-hop station 92.7 The Hu$tle. It had far too many call letters over the years to list, and went bankrupt in 2023.  

The Chronicle reported last November that the bankrupt station was bought by popular Seattle indie rock station KEXP for $3.75 million. KEXP is known for having been an early adopter of grunge acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and has a substantial digital and Youtube presence. And now Bay Area News Group reports that the new 92.7 will start broadcasting in the Bay Area on Tuesday, March 19.

“KEXP is grateful to have the opportunity to connect with music lovers everywhere, and we couldn’t be more excited to begin this next phase of our evolution with a whole new pool of listeners in a market area with so much rich musical history and character,” KEXP CEO Ethan Raup said in a release. “We’re looking forward to learning from our new Bay Area neighbors while we help do our part to grow our community and programming in the market, and ultimately move KEXP’s mission forward.”

At first, the station will broadcast the same programming as their 90.3 FM Seattle stations. But, according to the Chronicle, some local broadcasting will be mixed in over time.

“We have a strong audience in the Bay Area, and it’s one of the reasons why we’ve been looking at the possibility of doing something like this with terrestrial broadcast for several years now,” Raup said in a Chronicle interview. “It’s a really low-barrier way to reach a lot of people. We expect that we’re going to be able to boost our audience significantly beyond what we’ve been able to do just for digital.”

Seattle’s KEXP currently averages 200,000 weekly listeners on the broadcast  airwaves, and 100,000 listeners online.

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