KGO (AM)
KGO (810 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, and owned by Cumulus Media. Due to its extensive groundwave signal and the effects of the surrounding terrain, its coverage is greater than any Bay Area FM station, and it registers with Arbitron as a station listened to in surrounding metropolitan regions. Cumulus's local offices are based on Battery Street in the SoMa portion of San Francisco's Financial District.
- San Francisco, California
- United States
- San Francisco, California
- United States
810 kHz
810 The Spread
- Cumulus Media
- (Radio License Holdings LLC)
January 8, 1924
General Electric Oakland
34471
A
50,000 watts unlimited
KGO's transmitter site is located in Fremont, near the Dumbarton Bridge, where its prominent towers are landmarks used by pilots as a waypoint in communications with local airports. KGO broadcasts with 50,000 watts, the highest power permitted for AM stations by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It uses a directional antenna fulltime, that sends most of its signal to the north and south. This limits nighttime interference to 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. Its nighttime transmissions are received essentially free of static in locations such as Vancouver and Seattle, and San Diego, but are difficult to receive in Reno, Nevada, and other points east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, due to its directional signal.
Programming[edit]
From 1962 until 2022, KGO carried news and talk programming.
Since October 2022, the station 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. KGO was the radio home for the San Francisco 49ers football team from 1987 to 2005. It has broadcast University of California, Berkeley Golden Bears Football games since 1974; since 2013, it also broadcast select California Golden Bears men's basketball games.[2] The station began to air San Jose Earthquakes soccer games in 2023.[3]
History[edit]
1920s and 1930s[edit]
After several late-night test broadcasts, using the experimental call sign 6XG, KGO signed on the air on January 8, 1924, from General Electric's (GE) Oakland transformer manufacturing plant.[4] (The original two-story brick building, constructed specifically for the station on East 14th Street, was demolished sometime in the 1980s.[5]) The station was authorized for a then-impressive transmitting power of 1,000 watts.[6] KGO was part of GE's three-station holdings, in addition to WGY in Schenectady, New York and KOA in Denver, Colorado. At its debut it was known as the "Sunset Station", because it was GE's West Coast outlet.[7]
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 association with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and RCA's 1927 launch of the NBC Red Network, KGO was soon operated by NBC management out of studio facilities in San Francisco.
Annual Cure-a-Thon[edit]
Until the change in December 2011, KGO hosted an annual fundraiser called the KGO Cure-a-Thon to help raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society with all of the station's regular programming pre-empted for an entire day during the event. Listeners were encouraged to call in and donate money to help in the fight against these kinds of cancer. An auction was also held to help raise money. Notable items up for auction have included a trip with Gene Burns on a private jet to various destinations, such as Las Vegas and Italy, for a gourmet dinner. Cumulus Media has announced that it will not be continuing the KGO Cure-a-Thon charity event despite the fact it has raised millions of dollars for charity in the past.