KFOG 104.5 went off the air in 2019, swallowed up in the endless consolidation machine that turned America's radio dial into a wasteland of syndicated content and algorithmic playlists. As one Bay Area resident dryly put it, "It went off the air in 2019, so probably everyone that isn't in elementary school" remembers it. Fair point. But there's a difference between remembering something existed and remembering what it meant.

For decades, KFOG was genuinely local. Dave Morey's "Top 10 at 10" — ten songs from a single year, delivered by what one local called "the best voice" — was appointment listening. It wasn't an algorithm. It was a guy with taste and a microphone who understood his audience. That's a business model that used to work before massive media conglomerates decided every market in America should sound exactly the same.

And KFOG wasn't alone. KOME 98.5, KSJO 92.3, Live 105 — the Bay Area had an entire ecosystem of stations with real DJs and real personalities. As one nostalgic local put it: "These were my car buddies back in the day... I'm old, man."

Here's the liberty-minded take: this isn't just about nostalgia. The FCC's deregulation of media ownership in the '90s — particularly the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — let companies like iHeartMedia gobble up stations nationwide. The idea was that deregulation would spur competition and innovation. Instead, it produced homogeneity and cost-cutting. Thousands of local radio jobs vanished. Local programming disappeared. What replaced it was cheaper to produce and worse to listen to.

Deregulation is supposed to increase competition, not eliminate it. When the result is a handful of corporations controlling the airwaves and gutting local content, something went wrong — not with the principle of free markets, but with the execution.

Rest in peace, KFOG. Your bumper stickers outlasted your signal.