News Audio

Talk Radio Reacts To KGO 810 Format Change

Listeners were shocked to hear the station interrupt The Mark Thompson Show Thursday with a recorded message shortly after 10 a.m.

Published

6 months ago

October 7, 2022

Ryan Hedrick

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.

Ryan Hedrick

Ryan Hedrick serves as the Assistant Program Director and Co-Host of the Morning News Express at WFMD. Prior to WFMD, he hosted an afternoon program at News Talk 103.7 FM in Chambersburg, PA. He has worked at Sirius XM in Washington D.C., WBEN in Buffalo, NY, and for stations in Baltimore, MD. He has also worked at WIBW-AM in Topeka KS, earning the Kansas Association of Broadcasters (KAB) award for Major Market enterprise reporting in 2016. To connect with Ryan, find him on Twitter @SureToCover.

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8 Comments

Dick

October 7, 2022 at 12:21 pm

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)

Reply
Jay Berwanger

October 7, 2022 at 5:35 pm

What kind of format will the station have this Monday? Does anyone know, or the keeping it a secret? RIP KGO!!

Reply
kay gee oh

October 8, 2022 at 12:17 pm

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.

Reply
SeaPenny

October 10, 2022 at 2:48 pm

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

Reply
Nick Priest

October 10, 2022 at 7:47 pm

I must say I am highly disappointed in KGO’s new programming. As of today, I quit listening to KGO.

Reply
Sandra Abraham

October 11, 2022 at 2:46 am

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

Reply
Pedro C Wilson

October 11, 2022 at 7:11 pm

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.

Reply
Linda Shelby

October 12, 2022 at 4:00 pm

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!

Reply

News Audio

Keith Olbermann: Funny How Newsmax CEO Changed His Tune About DirecTV After New Agreement

“Newsmax gave the channel for free to DirecTV and then one day Newsmax said to DirecTV ‘Look, instead of free, we’d like you to give us $13 million a year’. DirecTV said ‘Are you kidding? For that crap?'”

Published

4 hours ago

March 24, 2023

BNM Staff

Earlier this week, conservative cable news channel Newsmax struck a deal with DirecTV to return the network to the satellite provider after a monthslong back and forth that see each company take shots at the other. Keith Olbermann couldn’t help but notice those shots have ceased.

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The former cable news host then said it was clear during the dispute that the problem was about business, not politics.

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Olbermann then turned his attention to Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy’s change in messaging. Previously, Ruddy — like others Olbermann had mentioned — was adamant that the network was removed due to conservative censorship.

However, now that a deal between the two parties has been struck, he believes that DirecTV “clearly supports diverse voices, including conservative ones”.

BNM Staff

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Sean Hannity: Not Surprising Media Backtracking on Donald Trump Indictment Date Predictions

“The media is now kind of trying to hint that Donald Trump’s arrest announcement was a hoax.”

Published

5 hours ago

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BNM Staff

Late last week, former President Donald Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday. That date came and went without any indication of when — or if — Trump would be indicted. Sean Hannity wasn’t surprised by the media coverage surrounding the story.

During The Sean Hannity Show Thursday, the host claimed the media has backtracked on its reporting, but added that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is more to blame than the media is.

“This is the funniest news aspect of the day regarding this is that you know, the media is now kind of trying to hint that Donald Trump’s arrest announcement was a hoax,” Hannity said. “Now we find out that Alvin Bragg is openly blaming Donald Trump for creating the false expectation that he would be indicted. Bragg’s direct accusation is a lot stronger than any media hinting about a Trump indictment.”

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BNM Staff

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101.7 The Truth Adding 2 New Shows To Weekday Lineup

“Both shows debut on April 3.”

Published

9 hours ago

March 24, 2023

BNM Staff

Two new shows are coming to 101.7 The Truth. The Milwaukee talk station announced that Denise Thomas, Telly Hughes, and Melanie Ricks will be joining its weekday lineup.

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Ricks will be at the center of a one hour show called Nothing But the Truth. The show will air at noon. Ricks serves as the in-game host for the Milwaukee Bucks, who call WTMJ, a sister station of 101.7 The Truth, their radio flagship.

Both shows debut on April 3. Starting that day, the station’s daytime lineup will be as follows:

7 – 9 a.m. Truth Be Told with Denise Thomas & Telly Hughes

9 – Noon The Truth with Sherwin Hughes

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4 – 6 p.m. The Truth in the Afternoon with Ken Harris

“We’re excited to bring a new lineup of voices to our listeners,” Cherie Harris, the general manager of Good Karma Brands’ Milwaukee cluster, said in a press release. “Our new hosts are passionate and knowledgeable about the issues that matter most to the black community. We aim to provide a platform for authentic and unfiltered discussion, and we’re confident that our new lineup will deliver for our partners and fans.”

BNM Staff