LIVERMORE — For those in the Tri-Valley wanting a relaxed, impassioned or heartbreaking classical composition to listen to on a drive through the suburbs, look no further than 89.9 FM, the newest addition to the Bay Area’s radio sphere.
Bill Lueth, the president of KDFC radio station and vice president of the USC Radio Group, sat down with the Bay Area News Group to discuss his station’s latest expansion into Livermore and other parts of the Bay Area. With a long, robust history in public broadcasting, Lueth explains the reach of classical music and its value for local communities.
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The interview has been edited for space and clarity.
Q: Tell me a little bit about Classical California and your organization. What should people know?
A: We are America’s largest media organization for classical radio and anything that goes along with that. It’s online, on smart speakers, smart phones, we have events and partnerships with the arts community. We have about a million and a half monthly listeners. The signals are up and down the coast of California, starting all the way in Ukiah actually, and then we have the Wine Country in Napa, then we go down to San Francisco out to Livermore, to Silicon Valley and Monterey. We keep going down the Central Coast to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, LA County, Orange County and out to Palm Springs. We have two home studio bases – one is in downtown San Francisco right across the street from Davies Symphony Hall and the opera house. The other one is in downtown Los Angeles.
We coordinate a lot of things from behind the scenes together in these two markets and that’s what is known as Classical California. We continue to do more and more to celebrate the arts across the state. We’re the only FM station that does this 24 hours a day in the state. There are no other full-time classical music stations on the radio. That’s one of our commitments. We’re listener supported, we’re a nonprofit – 80% of our revenue comes directly from the listeners who basically take care of the radio stations and the operations itself.
Radio host Maggie Clennon Reberg in a studio at Classical California KDFC on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in San Francisco, Calif. Classical California KDFC is the state’s largest classical radio station. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Q: How long have you been around?
A: I’ve been in the Bay Area since 1989. I started as a morning show host on a classical station back then called KKHI. It’s not around anymore. I was there for five years, and was also its program director. I anchored the OJ (Simpson) trial on the radio for KPIX radio when they had a radio station in the mid-90s. I came to KDFC in 1997, when a new company bought it. I was its morning show host then and the program director. Eventually they added other radio stations under my portfolio – country music and a 70s/80s pop rock format. And in 2011 the station was … purchased by the University of Southern California, which already owned the license for KUFC in Los Angeles, our current sister station, and I became the president of KDFC in Northern California as a nonprofit in January of 2011.
Q: How did you develop an appreciation for classical music?
A: Well, I wanted to be a professional trumpet player. I played hockey in high school in Minnesota and a hockey stick ended that (career) in my mouth. I was already a singer in some small-time rock bands and ended up getting a scholarship to be a music major at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. I really didn’t have a serious classical background, other than playing trumpet as a jazz player and high school orchestra. But it really wasn’t any overly sophisticated (experience.) I really got the opera bug from my mentor at the time who trained me as an opera signer. I was a grad assistant at the University of Nebraska in the opera department, so I got a masters in opera. And that’s where I really got into the classical world more deeply. Frankly, it was when I finally went into radio my last week of grad school, I started a little program and became the program director of this little station in Lincoln, Nebraska, when I was in my mid-20s. I really discovered the joy of kind of creating playlists and curating classical music for a broad audience through radio. That’s where I cut my teeth and learned more about the classical repertoire.
Q: What are some of your inspirations in classical music? Do you have any favorite symphonies or operas that you just adore?
A: I happen to be a music lover. I think that’s my space in this world, that’s why I’ve overseen these different formats as well and I’m involved in different kinds of music. So classical music is just another genre of music that I enjoy. I was in it, I like the range of it. I think I’m an omnivore of music. It’s hard to pick my favorite song, or my favorite piece, or my favorite composer or my favorite artist. I don’t usually have that, normally. I’m pretty mainstream, I can tell you that. My classical music taste is pretty down the middle: Beethoven, Mozart, Dvořák, Bottesini, Verdi – that’s sort of my wheelhouse.
An on air light outside a studio at Classical California KDFC on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in San Francisco, Calif. Classical California KDFC is the state’s largest classical radio station. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Q: Was there not a classical radio station in the Tri-Valley before?
A: We used to be out there. When KDFC was a commercial station, we had a bigger signal. We had a large commercial signal on 102.1 FM, and that was there for a long time until 2011. So in 2011, the commercial owners switched that format to a classic rock station…and today it’s a classic hip hop station. When the big radio stations were first installed in radio land in the Bay Area, they were primarily situated around the Bay. And the Tri-Valley, back in those days in the 40s and 50s and 60s, there weren’t many people who lived in the Tri-Valley. It was small towns and rural, so they didn’t create the stations for them, they created them for San Francisco and San Jose. So when the populations grew along 680 and eventually 580 and beyond, some of the stations had a booster out there. We had a booster on Mount Diablo, which helped fill in the area pretty well in the Tri-Valley. Because the public station had to acquire more signal, there wasn’t much coverage. Our 89.9 FM signal is not a high powered signal, but it’s located high on a mountain in Napa. It would get down to about Danville. It wouldn’t go any further south, and it was very spotty in parts of Orinda and Lafayette because the terrain wasn’t covered very well. We were able to add some signal in Livermore this year and now we’re coordinating some technical things to make the connection with our signal out in Napa to merge better. Now you can hear it in Livermore and parts of San Ramon, Pleasanton, parts of Dublin – and that’s new coverage that we didn’t have before.
Q: What makes it important to get this kind of music out to Livermore?
A: That’s what we do. The community and the joy of the arts and getting classical music in their lives and what it does for people – we think it’s highly valuable. The people who support us and listen to us believe the arts matter. It’s part of our society, and we’re sort of the arts station, the voice of the arts, if you will. We amplify all of what the community is doing. We broadcast the San Francisco Symphony, in LA we broadcast the LA Philharmonic. While this music is inspiring, it is also calming. It represents the calm in the chaos of the world. You can feel safe with this kind of music. It’s also very emotional and very human. And ours is different from algorithmic stations and the algorithm of music stations. We curate everything. We have people who pick our music and create a very different vibe, and then we have announcers who are friendly and make the music relevant.
Q: Would you say there’s a void you’re filling by bringing the signal to the Tri-Valley?
A: There’s an audience for classical music everywhere, and certainly in the Bay Area we have audiences that appreciate the arts and go to different things – not only in the Tri-Valley but at the California Symphony in Walnut Creek, they go to Bankhead Theater in Livermore. We know there’s an audience for it.
For us, you don’t have to be a classical music expert. This is just for people who like the sound of it, that want to learn more about it. It makes them feel good, and that’s valuable for anybody anywhere.
BILL LUETH PROFILE
Age: 63
Organization: KDFC and USC Radio Group
Title: President of KDFC and Vice President of USC Radio Group
Residence: Danville
Education: University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, Bachelors of Music; University of Nebraska, Masters of Music
Accolades: Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame 2021 Inductee
Five things about Bill
Loves to make music playlists of all kinds of music, which he’s done since high school
Played hockey
Radio anchor of OJ Simpson trial for KPIX FM before it dissolved and was the voice of San Francisco Opera for live broadcasts in 90s
Has a wife and two sons
Enjoys wine tasting
