KGO (AM)

KGO (810 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, and owned by Cumulus Media. KGO operates with 50,000 watts, the highest power permitted AM radio stations by the Federal Communications Commission, but uses a directional antenna to protect the other Class A station on 810 kHz, WGY in Schenectady, New York. Most nights, using a good radio, KGO can be heard throughout the Western United States east to the Rocky Mountains, and in Northern Mexico, Western Canada and Alaska.

Cumulus's offices are based on Battery Street in the SoMa portion of San Francisco's Financial District. KGO's transmitter site is based in Fremont near the Dumbarton Bridge. Its towers are noticeable enough that pilots use them as a waypoint in communications with local airports. Two of KGO's three towers partially collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake on October 17, 1989. All three were replaced.

Since October 2022, KGO has broadcast a sports talk format with an emphasis on sports betting; it is one of three sports stations owned by Cumulus Media in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with KNBR AM– FM and KTCT. From 1962 until 2022, the station was known for carrying news and talk programming. It was the number one radio station in the Bay Area in the Arbitron ratings from July 1978 to January 2009, a feat unmatched by any other station in the United States.

History

1920s and 1930s

After several late-night test broadcasts, using the experimental call sign 6XG, radio station KGO signed on the air on January 8, 1924, from General Electric's Oakland transformer manufacturing plant. The original two-story brick building, constructed specifically for the station on East 14th Street, was demolished sometime in the 1980s.) KGO was part of a planned three-station network comprising WGY in Schenectady, New York, and KOA in Denver, Colorado. KGO was first known as the "Sunset Station" since it was General Electric's West Coast outlet. At that time it operated with a then-impressive 1000 watts.

As was the custom with early radio stations, the programming consisted of performances by local talent, including the KGO Orchestra which provided some of the music, and a dramatic group known as the KGO Players, which performed weekly plays and short skits, often under the direction of Bay-area drama instructor Wilda Wilson Church. The station's music, which was also performed by other local orchestras and vocalists, included classical selections as well as popular dance music the next night. Due to GE's involvement in RCA and RCA's launch of the NBC Red Network, KGO was soon operated by NBC management out of studio facilities in San Francisco. See the KNBR entry for a fuller discussion of NBC's San Francisco radio operations.

In order to make its Schenectady outlet a clear channel station, GE effected a breakdown of 790 kHz. WGY would assume the maximum permissible power, and KGO would be lowered in power to 7,500 watts. That was then lower than the minimum permissible power for a clear channel station (10 kW), and also was then higher than the then maximum permissible power for a regional channel station (5 kW). Both stations retained omnidirectional antennas. Therefore, GE effectively removed from the West one of its eight clear channels and added another clear channel to the East, thereby giving the East nine cleared channels and the West only seven. The other "regions" in the Band Plan all retained their allotted eight cleared channels.

1940s and 1950s

In 1941, stations on 790, including WGY and KGO, were moved to 810 to comply with the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA).
On December 1, 1947, KGO switched to a directional antenna and its power was increased to 50,000 watts, the new minimum standard power for a U.S. clear channel station. An article in ''Broadcasting'' magazine noted that the increase "retired the nation's oldest regularly operating transmitter-a 7,500-watter ... in use since Jan. 8, 1924."

When the Federal Communications Commission forced NBC to sell one of its two networks (and that network's owned-and-operated stations), KGO's license switched from Radio Corporation of America to the Blue Network, Inc., effective January 23, 1942. The NBC Blue Network simply dropped "NBC" from its name to become the "Blue Network," then in June 1945 re-branded itself the American Broadcasting Company. KGO became one of the founding stations of the ABC Radio Network