How it started
Origin and history
In the late 1970s, many US radio stations began calling themselves "Kiss". Among these was KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, which adopted that call sign in 1975 when it became a sister station to KIIS (AM) — whose call sign comes not from the word "Kiss" but rather its dial position at 1150, with the letters "I" and "S" being the letters most closely resembling 1 and 5, respectively. Gannett, which owned the station, filed a federal trademark registration for "KIIS" in 1986, which has passed on to subsequent owners of the station. In 1997, Country Club Communications registered the only current federal trademark for "KISS FM" (which has since also been assigned to iHeartMedia); the logo registered then included a stylized pair of lips.
Numerous other stations using "Kiss" as (part of) a service mark were acquired over the course of Clear Channel's growth, among them WXKS-FM in Boston and WKSS in Hartford, Connecticut; however, other stations calling themselves "Kiss" which predated the "KISS FM" trademark were not acquired, such as Beasley Broadcast Group's WNKS in Charlotte. Furthermore, not all Clear Channel "Kiss" stations use the national brand; WXKS-FM has never used "KISS FM", maintaining its "Kiss 108" identity from 1979. At least one station that used a non-Clear Channel-related "Kiss" branding, WWKS in Pittsburgh, would eventually be acquired by Clear Channel itself, although that station (now WXDX-FM) would flip to a modern rock format long before being acquired by Clear Channel.
The process of bringing the KISS format to cities beyond Los Angeles was begun by Randy Michaels' Jacor Communications before Clear Channel bought it in 1999.
Michaels, later Clear Channel's chief executive officer, and brand manager Todd Shannon likened the KISS model to McDonald's. "When you see the KIIS ball logo, there's no mistaking what you're going to get. It's a Top 40 product, but they're all localized inside," Shannon said in 2002.
KISS programming contains voice-tracked segments, music, and commercials that are broadcast nationwide across its stations. Despite having many consistencies, the brand's programming differs slightly based on regional demographics. Brand manager Diana Laird explained that the KISS station in Santa Barbara, California (KIST-FM, now defunct), for example, plays far more hip hop and dance music than the mainstream pop music that is heard in Boise, Idaho (KSAS-FM). But KISS listeners in Boise and in Medford, Oregon (KIFS), have identical playlists because their demographics are similar. Similarly, the top five most-played artists for the week ending October 20, 2002, on Chicago's KISS station (WKSC-FM) included Cam'ron, Eminem, and Justin Timberlake, while the same list at Dallas' KISS station (KHKS) featured Kelly Clarkson, John Mayer, and Creed.
From Wikipedia’s article on KISS-FM, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2