After nearly 73 years on the airwaves, San Jose radio station KLIV will go silent after Sunday night’s broadcast ends at 11:59 p.m. But if owner Bob Kieve has his way, it won’t stay that way for long.

He’d like to donate the station to the city of San Jose, with the hope that it could be used to spark more civic engagement. “What I’d love to see is the city use the station to stimulate more participation in government,” said Kieve, 97, who has owned KLIV since 1967.

The location on Story Road that’s been home to the station since its start in 1946 is being sold and plans are in the works to demolish the 5,000-watt station’s four antenna towers — the two tallest are 288 feet high — that have been visual landmarks for the neighborhood now known as Little Saigon. KLIV received the Legendary Station award from the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2017.

Kieve considered selling KLIV, but he found the single bid he received to be too low and came up with the idea of using the station for a more civic purpose. He said that Mayor Sam Liccardo has been receptive to the notion, though many details would still need to be worked out including how the station would be funded.

In Kieve’s scenario, KLIV could be a vehicle for broadcasting city council meetings, as well as key committee meetings and other events with music playing the rest of the time. But you can bet the music wouldn’t be “Country Gold,” the most recent format for the station.

KLIV’s history began in 1946 when it first broadcasted under the call letters KSJO from its studio on Story Road in 1946. Its FM sister station started a few months later; the two eventually split and KSJO, once known for its rock music, currently broadcasts Bollywood music at 92.3 FM.

After a change of ownership, the AM call letters were changed to KLIV in 1960 and the station became San Jose’s destination for Top 40 music. Empire Broadcasting, of which Kieve is the remaining original owner, took over seven years later and things really took off with program director “Captain Mikey” Herrington and DJs including John McLeod, who had a 51-year career at the station and was still doing humor-laced traffic reports for the station on Friday.

“We were Top 40 until the late 1970s and then we sort of morphed into disco and then album-oriented rock and then in the spring of 1981 we went Big Band until 1991,” McLeod recalled. “They were all fun. We got to see Neil Diamond, Jose Feliciano was in the lobby plugging ‘Feliz Navidad,’ and in the Big Band days I got to meet the people my parents listened to. I emceed a show with Benny Goodman.”

In 1991, KLIV switched to an all-news format in 1991 that provided news and community service programs focused on the South Bay throughout a 25-year run. But news was never a financial hit, prompting a switch in 2016 to a classic country format. That wasn’t a ratings success, either, and the station kept losing money.

“It’d be nice if we had more listeners, but it is what it is. We have a devoted core,” morning host Tony Michaels said Friday. “These guys gave us all the tools we needed to win, but we just couldn’t make it happen.”

KRTY, KLIV’s sister station at 95.3 FM which shares the same building, won’t be affected much. The operation is expecting to move in mid-March to a new studio on Monterey Road and nearly all the company’s employees will be relocated there, with some in new roles. KRTY’s signal is broadcast from a tower in the Los Gatos hills, not the San Jose site, so its signal won’t be affected.

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Virtual spin on San Jose’s Mexican Independence Day celebration KLIV/KRTY General General Manager Nate Deaton, who will have worked for Empire Broadcasting for 25 years in March, said moving from the old studios and offices will be like leaving home. “There will be more than one day I come here instead of going to the new building,” he said.

Kieve has also been preparing for the move by cleaning up his museum-like office, which contains memorabilia going back to his days working on President Dwight Eisenhower’s speechwriting staff.

The Federal Communications Commission can revoke the broadcast license of any station that goes silent for longer than 12 months, but Kieve’s not worried about the deadline. “Our FCC lawyer has been clear that as long as there is some idea of what to do, the FCC will look on it favorably,” he said.

So if you like “Country Gold,” you’ve got until Sunday night to enjoy it. And if you don’t, just wait.