page_title: KGO (AM)
section_title: 1990s-2010s
hierarchical_section_title: KGO (AM) / History / 1990s-2010s
caption_attribution_description: English: Photographed by and copyright of (c) David Corby (User:Miskatonic, uploader) 2006
context_page_description: KGO is a commercial AM radio station licensed to San Francisco, California. It is one of two Talk radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area owned by Cumulus Media. The other is 560 KSFO. While KSFO airs mostly nationally syndicated talk hosts, KGO runs mostly local hosts on weekdays. KGO operates with 50,000 watts, the highest power permitted AM radio stations by the Federal Communications Commission. But it 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. KGO operated as the West Coast flagship radio station of the American Broadcasting Company until the radio group was purchased by Citadel Broadcasting in 2007. The station became part of Cumulus Media, following its 2011 merger with Citadel.
  KGO has its studios in the SoMa portion of San Francisco's Financial District. Before Cumulus took over the station, it was based in the same building as its former television partner KGO-TV at the ABC Broadcast Center.
context_section_description: Until December 5, 2011, KGO created nearly all of its own local programming, with very limited syndicated content. The majority of its programs were hosted by San Francisco Bay Area broadcasters. The daily schedule included many issues-oriented talk shows, with weekday hosts that included Gene Burns, Gil Gross, Ronn Owens, John Rothmann and lawyer Len Tillem. The station also carried a variety of specialty programs, particularly on weekends, with John Hamilton discussing travel and leisure, Gene Burns covering fine food and dining (on a show separate from his weekday program), Joanie Greggains hosting a health-and-fitness program, and Brent Walters, who teaches "Comparative Religions" at San Jose State University, hosting the early Sunday morning show, God Talk. In 2014, KGO brought in John Batchelor at midnight.  News/talk weekend hosts now include Brian Copeland, "Karel" Charles Karel Bouley, and Pat Thurston.
  The weekday morning news (from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m.) is currently co-anchored by Jon Bristow and Jennifer Jones-Lee. The afternoon news (from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.) currently features veteran reporter Chris Brecher and award-winning reporter/anchor Bret Burkhart.
  On Friday, December 2, 2011, new owner Cumulus Media announced that KGO was rebranding itself as "news and information," moving to an all-news format from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. (in addition to the existing morning-drive, noon-hour and afternoon-drive news blocks) on December 5. This had resulted in the abrupt termination, on December 1, of most of the talk hosts (including Gene Burns, Gil Gross, John Rothmann, Ray Taliaferro, Len Tillem, and Dr. Bill Wattenburg). Ronn Owens's morning show, as well as weekend talk programming remained, although some of the weekend hosts (including Joanie Greggains, and Len Tillem) were also terminated on December 1, 2011. Bob Brinker's syndicated "Moneytalk" has been moved to KSFO, a politically conservative talk radio sister station which arguably better reflects Brinker's conservative politico-economic views ("Moneytalk" is a brand which is owned by ABC and its successor, not by Brinker; Brinker's own brand is "Marketimer", although Brinker has not and does not espouse market timing, as commonly understood, per se in any of his broadcasts or newsletters). Leo Laporte's weekend syndicated tech talk program was also a casualty of the format change and is no longer being broadcast on KGO. Gil Gross, Len Tillem and Leo Laporte are being broadcast by KKSF.
  The format change and termination of many popular talk show hosts sparked outrage among long-time listeners, many of whom called for sponsors to drop their advertising on the station. Ratings declined substantially following the change, with competitors KCBS and KQED-FM continuing to lead the market, and in December 2014, KGO reintroduced talk programming on weekdays. In December 2014, KGO added Chip Franklin to the noon to 3 pm lineup. In January 2015, KGO announced they had hired Chicago/San Antonio radio personality Kevin "DreX" Buchar, best known for his successful morning show on Chicago's WKSC-FM, which ran for more than a decade, from 7PM to 10PM. John Batchelor's syndicated show air overnights, returning KGO to the same level of news programming as before 2011.
  Both KGO and Dallas-based sister station KLIF shared similar visual News/Information identities after KLIF's parent Cumulus acquired Citadel until 2014, when Talk programming was reintroduced.
  On March 31, 2016, at Noon, KGO dropped its previous programming and began stunting with recordings of speeches from influential figures and people talking about San Francisco, as well as songs about the city, while promoting "The Next Generation of KGO" to launch on April 5 (though with a break during the weekend for paid programming). At least 20 people, including the entire news staff, as well as some staffers from sister station KFOG, were laid off with the change. Originally, long-time KGO host Ronn Owens announced that he would be moving to sister station KSFO in the afternoon slot beginning April 4. However, due to what was a
caption: KGO Helicopter.
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