On June 11, 1955, the station first signed on. It was owned by the Oxnard Broadcasting Corporation.[4] For several decades the station aired a variety format, which always included at least a few hours of Spanish-language programming each week. By 1964, 90 hours of the weekly schedule was in Spanish (approximately 70% of the then-standard 18-hour broadcast day).[5]
By the fall of 1966, KOXR's entire 18-hour broadcast day was in Spanish.[6]
In 1970, Oxnard Broadcasting sold KOXR to Howard A. Kalmenson for $598,000.[7] Kalmenson subsequently formed Lotus Communications with KOXR and co-owned KWKW in Pasadena, CA and KENO in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lotus kept the station until 1994, when they sold it to Albert and Jacquelyn Vera for $350,000.[8] Albert Vera had been a deejay at KSPA (now KUNX) in Santa Paula, California when it was a Spanish-language station in the 1960s.[9] He sold the station to Radio Lazer three years later.