The station first signed on the air on December 29, 1948, as KFAC-FM, the FM adjunct to KFAC (1330 AM). First owned by Errett Lobban Cord, a luxury vehicle manufacturer who purchased KFAC in 1931 from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, KFAC became one of the first commercially operated radio stations in the United States to adopt a full-time fine arts/classical music format, having gradually added long-form programming devoted to the genre between 1938 and 1945. The station's longest-running program, the six-night-a-week "Gas Company Evening Concert", would enjoy a run on both KFAC—and later it and KFAC-FM—between October 1940 and September 1989. KFAC also slowly assembled an airstaff with unprecedented continuity and tenure, including, but not limited to: Thomas Cassidy, Fred Crane, Tom Dixon, Dick Crawford, Bill Carlson and Carl Princi, all six of which would be continuously employed by the station between 1953 and 1983.