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KWVE-FM (107.9 FM) is a
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission 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 radio ...
licensed
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
to
San Clemente, California
San Clemente (; Spanish for " St. Clement") is a city in Orange County, California. Located in the Orange Coast region of the South Coast of California, San Clemente's population was 64,293 in at the 2020 census. Situated roughly midway betwee ...
, broadcasting to the
Greater Los Angeles area
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
and northern
San Diego County
San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...
. KWVE-FM airs
Christian radio
Christian radio is a Christian media radio format that focus on programming with a Christian message. Many such broadcasters play contemporary Christian music, though many programs include sermons, radio dramas, as well as news and talk progra ...
programming with an emphasis on
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
teaching and
Christian music
Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely around ...
of the
praise
Praise as a form of social interaction expresses recognition, reassurance or admiration.
Praise is expressed verbally as well as by body language (facial expression and gestures).
Verbal praise consists of a positive evaluations of another's a ...
and
worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recognition ...
genre. The station is owned by
Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa
Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa is a Christian church, Christian megachurch located near the boundary between the cities of Costa Mesa, California, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, California, Santa Ana in Orange County, California, Orange County. Although t ...
, with its
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...
atop
Santiago Peak
Santiago Peak is the southern mountain of the Saddleback landform in Orange County, California. It is the highest and most prominent peak of both the Santa Ana Mountains and Orange County; it also marks a border point with Riverside County. ...
and studios in the church-owned Logos Building in
Santa Ana, adjacent to the church campus.
Most of the teaching programs on the station are locally produced by Calvary Chapel
pastors
A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and An ...
. The praise and worship music, as described on the station's website, is meant to "lead one into the worship of God without attracting too much attention to the music itself."
It also has two hours of Christian children's programming on Saturday mornings.
History
The El Camino Broadcasting Corporation built KAPX and signed it on in November 1971. By 1977, it aired a contemporary middle-of-the-road format. That November, Radio Apex bought KAPX and changed its call letters to KWVE-FM, becoming a beautiful music station known as K-Wave.
By the early 1980s, KWVE-FM was a secular commercial music station that received poor ratings, except in the evening drive slot when it played cutting-edge
punk rock and
new wave music
New wave is a loosely defined music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s. It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself. La ...
which pulled high
Arbitron
Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by mergin ...
ratings. In 1982, KWVE-FM sold the 7 p.m. to midnight timeslot to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa as well as Sundays from 5 a.m. to noon; in 1984, the station fired most of its disc jockeys and went to syndicated music programming. In 1985, Calvary Chapel bought the station. The Calvary offer beat two competing bidders because it was an all-cash offer.
The church took over on April 15, expanding the Christian programming to its current 24-hour format while retaining the KWVE
call letters
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...
and K-Wave brand. KWVE-FM advertises itself as "The Wave of Living Water", in reference to its wave-themed moniker and to the New Testament phrase "living water", a term for salvation through Jesus Christ.
For most of its existence, the station's call letters were simply KWVE, without the FM suffix. That changed in 2009 when Calvary Chapel purchased a defunct Christian AM radio station, KGDP in
Oildale, California
Oildale is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kern County, California, United States. Oildale is located north-northwest of downtown Bakersfield, at an elevation of . The population was 32,684 at the 2010 census, up from 27,885 at the 2000 cens ...
and renamed it KWVE (now
KGSV
KGSV (660 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Oildale, California, and serving the Bakersfield metropolitan area. The station is owned by XL Media (CA) Inc., and airs a South Asian radio format known as "Radio Punjab." Affiliated ...
), simulcasting the FM signal into the
Bakersfield
Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...
radio market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...
. As a result, the original KWVE was legally renamed KWVE-FM.
KWVE-FM is sometimes confused with a similarly named secular
smooth adult contemporary radio station in Los Angeles,
KTWV
KTWV (94.7 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, and broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc., and airs an urban adult contemporary radio format. KTWV has studios on ...
(94.7 FM), known as "94.7 The Wave" and owned by
Entercom
Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...
. Then-owner
Metromedia
Metromedia (also often MetroMedia) was an American media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and controlled Orion Pictures from 1988 to 1997. Metromedia was established in 1956 after the DuMo ...
converted rock-formatted
KMET to KTWV and "The Wave" on February 14, 1987, nearly two years after the launch of KWVE-FM's current format. Both stations emphasize their FM frequencies to distinguish themselves from each other, and during the 1990s KWVE-FM kept on hand in its broadcast booth KTWV's request line and business numbers as a courtesy to listeners mistakenly calling into the wrong station.
The K-Wave Radio Network
K-Wave operates two other feeds outside the Los Angeles area.
KSDW
KSDW (88.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is a Christian radio station licensed to Temecula, California and serving the Temecula Valley and San Diego County, California, San Diego County. The station is owned and operated by Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, an ...
(88.9 FM) in San Diego,
K245AI
KRTM (88.1 FM) is a Christian radio station licensed to Banning, California, and serving the Palm Springs radio market. The station is owned by Penfold Communications, Inc.
History
The station went on the air as KRTM on 1979-11-05 on 88.9 FM ...
(96.9 FM), and
KWTH
KWTH (91.3 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Religious format, licensed to Barstow, California, serving the Barstow area, the Victor Valley area, and along I-15 from the Cajon Pass to Baker and I-40 to Essex.
History
KWTH originally went on ...
(91.3 FM) in
Barstow, California
Barstow is a city in San Bernardino County, California, in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. Located in the Inland Empire region of California, the population was 25,415 at the 2020 census. Barstow is an important crossroads for the I ...
;
KOMP-HD2 and K251BS (98.1 FM) Las Vegas, and K287BE (105.3 FM) Mountain Pass.
(Special note: As of Midnight local time on Friday, May 28, K251BS (98.1 FM) Las Vegas will no longer broadcast K-Wave programming.)
Together they create continuous signal coverage from
San Diego County, California
San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...
, through
Orange County, California
Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
and
Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...
to
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
along the
Interstate 15
Interstate 15 (I-15) is a major Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the western United States, running through Southern California and the Intermountain West. I-15 begins near the Mexico–United States border, Mexican border i ...
highway corridor.
The church acquired the three stations on August 11, 2011. These stations were previously owned and programmed by other ministries affiliated with the Calvary Chapel fellowship of churches. KWTH and K284AU were originally a part of the
Living Proof Radio Network when they signed on the air in 2006, but later were affiliated with
The KRTM Radio Network from October 27, 2010 until August 16, 2011. K295AJ originally broadcast at 106.9 FM as part of the
Calvary Satellite Network for many years before signing off in June 2009. It returned to the air in November 2010 at 98.1 FM as a part of the KRTM Radio Network.
25th anniversary
On April 15 and 16, 2010, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa celebrated the 25th anniversary of its purchase of KWVE-FM and the station's Christian talk and music format with two evening concerts in the church sanctuary. The concerts featured
Love Song
A love song is a song about romantic love, falling in love, heartbreak after a breakup, and the feelings that these experiences bring. A comprehensive list of even the best known performers and composers of love songs would be a large order. ...
, a Christian rock band founded at Calvary Chapel and popular during the
Jesus Movement
The Jesus movement was an evangelical Christian movement which began on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and primarily spread throughout North America, Europe, and Central America, before it subsided in the l ...
of the early 1970s, and messages from senior pastor
Chuck Smith.
Website attacked by hackers
Beginning on October 17, 2010 visitors to KWVE-FM's website began complaining on the station's Facebook fan page that they could not access either the home page or the Flash Player live stream. The station replied that the web server experienced a hacker attack and the entire site had to be taken down while they cleared the hardware of malignant code and rebuilt the site "from the ground up". As of November 1 the site and live stream were back in operation.
Calvary Chapel Music Channel
On August 7, 2011 KWVE-FM announced on its website and Facebook page the creation of the Calvary Chapel Music Channel, a commercial-free iTunes channel streaming the station's music 24 hours a day.
EAS issues
KWVE-FM is the Local Primary station of the
Emergency Alert System
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via cable, satellite, or broadcast television, and both ...
(EAS) for Orange County, meaning that all radio stations and cable systems in the area must relay emergency information and Required Monthly Tests from KWVE-FM, when activated.
On September 15, 2009, the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
fined Calvary Chapel $5,000 for a botched EAS test on October 19, 2008—on that date, the station conducted a Required Monthly Test (RMT) by mistake, instead of the scheduled Required Weekly Test. The operator aborted the test midway through, leading the station to fail to broadcast a code to indicate the end of the test, causing all stations and cable systems in the area to broadcast KWVE-FM's programming until those stations took their equipment offline or their EAS equipment had timed out (after two minutes).
After the fine was levied, every state broadcast association in the United States submitted a joint letter to the FCC, protesting against the fine, saying that the FCC could have handled the matter better. On November 13, 2009, the FCC rescinded its fine against KWVE-FM, but had still admonished the station for broadcasting an unauthorized RMT, as well as omitting the code to end the test.
On September 21, 2017, a glitch during a test conducted by KWVE caused the station to accidentally omit the end-of-message tone, which caused portions of
Chuck Swindoll
Charles Rozell Swindoll (born October 18, 1934) is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator, and radio preacher. He founded ''Insight for Living'', headquartered in Frisco, Texas, which airs a radio program of the same name on more t ...
's ''Insight for Living'' program to accidentally be relayed to local cable providers. In the audio relayed, Swindoll was heard quoting a Biblical verse,
2 Timothy 3:1, and stating that "extremely violent times" would come, which led viewers hearing the audio out of context to believe that it had been hacked to inform of an impending
apocalypse
Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imager ...
.
References
External links
KWVE-FM Official Website*
{{Religious Radio Stations in California
WVE-FM
Radio stations established in 1971
Mass media in Orange County, California