KDFC 90.3 FM

i am very grateful to have this radio station available. it was a contributing factor for deciding to quit sirius. «classical» music is a treasure of western civilization and will never lose it’s appeal and loyal following. I was happy to contribute to the station recently. and as a gift they are sending a CD of Pavorotti’s 50 greatest tracks. Looking very forward to that arriving!

KDFC is the last classical radio station in the Bay Area. Take it or leave it. I used to listen to its daylight simulcast on KIBE-​AM before I acquired an FM radio. I enjoyed the baroque and classical music played during the morning and evening commute. Unfortunately, its playlist was even narrower than that of the SF Symphony, which used the venerable-​but-​now-​defunct KKHI as its broadcasting partner.
Half a century later, the playlist may be too broad. I often hear orchestral movie soundtracks, usually from the Star Wars & Harry Potter movies, which need to be played somewhere, but not on a classical music station.
KDFC, and its sister stations still provide drive-​time music for me. I use it to avoid pledge breaks on KQED-​FM and KCSM. When KDFC is fund raising, I go back to the other 2.

I enjoy listening to KDFC streaming online so I have no problems with reception. I enjoy the informative Announcers. I do wish KDFC would expand their classical musical repertoire. I have communicated the specifics of my request to the management of KDFC however as of yet they have not responded nor have they acted on my requests.

Please do something about your signal!!! I live in downtown San Francisco and have so much trouble with the reception (it was coming in fine for a while and then all of a sudden it stopped). I thought maybe the weather might have had something to do with it, but it’s been beautiful the last few days and the reception has been worse than ever. My friend in the Castro can’t get it in either. We’re both very disappointed.

I expected more with the «new» KDFC linked to KUSC but have been very disappointed. KDFC is difficult to receive in much of the SF Bay Area despite their numerous repeater frequencies. Weak signals aside KDFC programming is not my cup of tea. I am a long time classical music fan and know that solo instrumental, chamber, vocal, choral, early music, twentieth-​century, sacred music, period performance and most pieces with performance times longer than twenty minutes are virtually absent from KDFC programming. This station is focused on classical background music, not classical foreground music. If you want tranquilizing twaddle, then KDFC is for you but not for me. I stream WFMT fairly often.

I’m a huge fan of the music, especially unique piano concertos. BUT, do you really need to do another pledge drive for the station owners in Southern California, and promote USC all the time? Why can’t we have a solid SF classical station without getting LA into the picture? Too much promoting $ if you ask me and is a turn off to my iistening pleasure. AND, since the take over several years ago from 102.1, the channels STILL do not get good reception. WTF.

If your definition of classical music is ‘talk radio’ dominated by the saccharine prattle and phoniness of Diane Nicolini and Hoyt Smith, then this channel is for you: self-​promoting, cloying platitudes and trivia, interspersed with the same 50 pieces repeated ad nauseam. Perfectly suited to the provincial PC snobbery of the little village by the Bay

Love the station. Need the station. But will not give a penny until the reception in central Contra Costa County is improved. Why in the world can’t they get that Christian station in Walnut Creek to stay in their own bandwidth? There is improvement but seriously? right there at 24 and 680 where all the freeways cross and commuters languish… there is static only. And only static from the Park Hotel to the exit of the tunnel. Nothing beyond a mile up into the western hills all along the 680 corridor. Nothing beyond a couple miles east of 680. I just don’t understand it. It has been years. Traveling from Walnut Creek down to San Jose the station is lost before the 580 interchange. Horrendous. I agree about too much oboe. Same for harp. Should be a law.

Decent station with nice choices in classical music. Would be a great station if they played more music and did less jabbering.

Amongst the world’s worst classical stations for repetoire, artist choice and reception.
The staff do not appear to know the repetoire and have a childish approach.

This station is awful. It only plays 99% chamber orchestra music, very little other genres of music, never have I heard a vocal track and there is far too little piano music and what there is, is often combined with orchestras (where the combination of piano + orchestra is definitely less then sum of its parts). Basically all of their music has very little of any kind of «melody» that anyone would want to hum, instead its music that is completely focused on rhythm and harmonies with very simplistic melodies.

Thank goodness for this station. I drive to and from work feeling like a human. For that short time I’m in my car, I feel like I’m on a retreat and I don’t have to worry about Rihanna’s voice popping out at any given moment. Ahhhhhh, serenity.

Excellent classical music station! I enjoy all the music they play. KDFC is now playing again in the South Bay! it was a dark period during their absence, full of melancholy, piss poor alternatives for music. With classical music now being played, the south bay has been revitalized! I love and prefer this station over any other, and will continue to support it in any way that I can. I can’t live anywhere that does not have a classical music station. Let’s hope this station stays.

Same old KDFC. Every other hour comes another boring oboe concerto. Since when is the oboe concerto the most popular or significant form of music? Only on KDFC. The station must have hundreds and hundreds of them to play. Then comes a flute concerto every other hour. Throw in a few piano, violin, and clarinet concerti. Overtures, the most popular symphonies, a token chamber piece. Have an announcer mispronounce a composer’s name or mess up something in Italian. You know — it’s just like the old commercial KDFC, without the appallingly loud and inappropriate and jarring commercials. At least the commercials are gone now!
And significant amounts of vocal music are played only early Sunday mornings, plus the occasional opera. So this is a station that plays almost exclusively (easy-​listening) instrumental music written between 1720 and 1900 — to keep office and shop workers happy listening to background/​elevator music.
Don’t forget the incessant quizzes, contests, and surprises. That’s to remind listeners that classical music can be FUN (as well as «calm, cool, and casual»). And the irrelevant anecdotes about composers, as if that has anything to do with learning about the actual listenable content of the music played.
Anything else is pretty hard to find on this station
KDFC = elevator music for office drones
KDFC — classical music for people who hate classical music
You might want to try listening online to the much better quality classical music programming (and better-​informed announcers) at

and even
. You’ll hear announcers who are actually hired for their ability to speak knowledgeably about the music they play for listeners.
For example, on this Monday afternoon in early July, between 2pm and 3pm, I just listened online to the following vocal set on WFMT. The singers were winners of the station’s recent «All-​Star Singers» poll by listeners:
1. Bryn Terfel singing an aria from Mendelssohn’s oratorio «Elijah»
2. Renee Fleming singing a Schubert song
3. Jessye Norman singing a traditional spiritual
4. (the late) Dietrich Fischer-​Dieskau singing three Ruckert songs by Mahler, accompanied by Leonard Bernstein on piano
5. Maria Callas singing Bellini’s «Casta Diva» with the La Scala Orchestra (Serafin)
6. Leontyne Price singing «America, the Beautiful» (live and unaccompanied recording, followed by tumultuous applause)
NEVER would you hear such a well-​programmed set of music on KDFC — and NEVER on a weekday afternoon! We also know that WFMT is doing okay commercially. It knows how to produce and make money from classical music programming — on the radio and online.

The only radio station I can bear listening to these days. Excellent mix of opera and classical, with informative commentary.

Great station but reception is nearly hopeless in Oakland.
I have to switch between 90.3 and 89.9 back and forth as I drive through town. I can barely pick them up at home in the hills with nearly line-​of-​site to SF.
Glad I didn’t throw out my CDs.

Since the move to the new frequency, it has been virtually impossible to pick the station up in the East Bay. Online offers better luck. Good mix of traditional and modern classical music. Sometimes accused but «purists» of playing the «Top Forty» style, the station is dedicated to presenting classical in a snob-​free manner (to their credit; especially, with the decline in music education and school bands, the populist approach may become critical to the survival of local classical groups themselves.) DJs are amicable, knowledgeable, and down to earth (unlike some of their oft times pompous predecessors of the 60s and 70s.)