One of the oldest news/talk brands in the country is signing off. San Francisco’s KGO 810 is changing formats Monday. The station made its debut back in 1924.
The Cumulus-owned station has not confirmed what the format change will look like but according to The Desk, KGO Radio will relaunch as a sports betting format using the moniker, ‘The Spread’. A combination of BetQL and local sports betting talk programming is expected to be featured starting Monday.
Late Thursday, broadcast industry professionals reacted to the news via social media.
“It has been a dream come true. When I was a college student at San Jose State University, I always said my dream was having my own show on KGO Radio,” said host Nikki Medoro on Facebook. For the last several years, I fulfilled my dream of talking with people in the Bay Area, the hometown that I love.”
Listeners were shocked to hear the station interrupt The Mark Thompson Show Thursday with a recorded message shortly after 10 a.m.
“End of an era, but not all that surprising considering the way the winds are blowing in that business,” tweeted former overnight man Ray Woodson.
“This is extremely sad. I have nothing but happy memories of producing @KGO810 for 6 years. Feel terrible for my old coworkers losing their jobs and to the KGO listeners,” said former producer Albert Ermelo.
KCBS Radio’s Doug Sovern said he was shocked to learn of the format flip.
“This is shocking, to say the least,” he tweeted. “A Bay Area Radio institution, which had already been gutted, quite frankly, for years, is dead,” he said. “One of the great stations in the history of radio. Rest In Programming.”
“So apparently, the last shovel of dirt has been thrown on KGO, interestingly after their best book in some time,” added former KGO host Gil Gross. From the teasers during the music stunting of songs about money and the stupid tease line “you can bet on it”, it’s going to be another robot run sports betting format which is all the rage among brainless, out of ideas, radio companies.”
WBBM Radio host Rob Hart said that KGO’s 27-year run as the top-rated station in the city was remarkable.
“I had two co-workers who had long tenure at KGO Radio in San Francisco, and a bunch of people who were second- and third-degree radio connections so I knew the esteem it once held in that city,” he added.
I guess this is the end of AM radio for me….this is truly SAD….. I don’t listen to other people sports, but nice to see your comments (at “3 seconds” after you posted it this morning..)
:… I have only listened to KGO from Junior Hight days(nights)……(talk show at the Hungry Eye….)(also, later in the night, conversely, Wolfman Jack on XERB “over Los Angeles”…….)
My latest ‘find’ on KGO AM radio was John Batchelor’s show `”CBS Eye on the World”
Good luck with KGO ‘news’..Thanks for listening…Dick(Oregon/Idaho with a C.Crane radio)
What kind of format will the station have this Monday? Does anyone know, or the keeping it a secret? RIP KGO!!
What a joke. They are going to turn it into a sports betting circus show. They are counting their chickens before it hatches. prop 26 and 27 for sports gambling in California will not pass. The people have spoken. Mark my words on it. This new format stage act of a show is a dud and a failure from the get go. It too will go out of business.
I listened to KGO for decades. I did so because I wanted to hear what the left was thinking and talking about. I am very far politically from all of their hosts. I remember Bernie Ward, before he went to prison… I really like his show… Owen’s, he was full of himself. In the last few years KGO went even further to the left, the woke pronoun focused left. I figured they would still make it in the bay area because they were preaching to the choir down there…. This is a bad sign for the leftists in the bay area… To go woke and broke in the bay area is a sign the left has jumped the shark. RIP KGO
I must say I am highly disappointed in KGO’s new programming. As of today, I quit listening to KGO.
I don’t like the new format. I like the talk show listening to people with their ideas & opinions and the talk show hosts. I’ll miss them. All I can say is good bye KGO Radio I won’t be listening to you
I’m at a total loss, I live in Arizona where the GOP still pretty much have a strangle hold on everything. It was so nice listening to KGO radio, it was like a breath of fresh air for us here. I will miss you KGO. I don’t gamble so I won’t be listening anymore.
I have been listening to KGO all my life. I am now 75. Stated with listening with my Grandmother.
It was the one station where you could get the “real new”!!!
I will never listen again!
I see the station has gone the way of the world.
How very disappointing!
Sports and betting!! All I can say is wow!
All about the money, big business and no more real, honest talk about what is really happening in the world!