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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. 

Ryan Hedrick

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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

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8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. 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)

  2. 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!!

  3. 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.

  4. 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

  5. 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.

  6. 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

  7. 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.

  8. 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!

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News Audio

Daily Wire Co-CEO on Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens Spat: We Won’t Always Agree

“We employ people [and] give them a platform to give their opinion.”

Eduardo Razo

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A photo of The Daily Wire

The Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro and one of the platform’s big names, Candace Owens, were recently in a public feud.

It all began when Shapiro called Owens’ stance on the state of Israel “disgraceful” and “disreputable,” adding that she was attempting a “faux-sophistication” on the subject.

Co-CEO Jeremy Boreing, who wasn’t in the United States during the entire situation, appeared on The Megyn Kelly Show and was asked about the dispute.

“Yeah, I’ve been handling it by making a movie in Hungary for the last six months, which has been a great way for me personally to handle it,” Boreing jokingly said before taking a more serious tone. “We employ people [and] give them a platform to give their opinion. We’re not always going to agree with the opinions that they give. 

“We empower them to be passionate with those opinions, and sometimes those passions are going to get turned in the wrong direction. And I think that in this particular case, you have two very articulate and passionate people in, Ben and Candace, whose conflict of visions on this issue spilled out into the public square, which is going to happen from time to time. 

“I wish it hadn’t happened the way that it did, but it’s going to happen from time to time. And I think it just is sort of the territory when you decide to start a media company and give people broad freedom.”

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WFNC Morning Host Jeff ‘Goldy’ Goldberg Retires

Barrett News Media

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A photo of Jeff Goldberg
(Photo: Jeff Goldberg)

Jeff “Goldy” Goldberg has been a staple in the Fayetteville, NC market. However, after 18 years of hosting mornings at WFNC, Goldberg is calling it a career.

Goldberg signed off from Good Morning Fayetteville Friday morning.

“Since I announced my retirement a few weeks ago, the outpouring of love and the good wishes from not only my listeners here in Fayetteville, but my listeners in Washington D.C., has been overwhelming,” Goldberg told Fayetteville’s City View. “It has been a privilege and a joy to live out my dream for these last 45 years, and to have a second chapter like the one I’ve had here in Fayetteville exceeded my wildest dreams.”

Goldberg worked in both television and radio in Washington, D.C. before moving to the Cumulus-owned station in 2005.

“I am 80% excited and 20% nervous,” he surmised about his retirement.

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Buck Sexton: Media Needs to Facilitate More Debates Like DeSantis/Newsom

“That is my fundamental premise in American politics, in American media. We have gotten to a place now where no one has to defend their positions anymore.”

Barrett News Media

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A photo of Buck Sexton and the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show logo

Fox News hosted a debate between Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) Thursday evening. The event was moderated by Sean Hannity. If Buck Sexton got his way, the made-for-TV event would be a regular occurrence.

While previewing the event on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, Sexton argued that he wants to see more debates and discussions with differing viewpoints more frequently on cable news.

“I want to see more high-level debate. That is my fundamental premise in American politics, in American media. We have gotten to a place now where no one has to defend their positions anymore,” Sexton said. “No one is really pushed and feels like people can say, ‘Oh, well, how do we change this?’ Well, you need to have people that feel that there’s a pressure from the public for them to have to actually stand up and do it.”

He continued by noting a seemingly bygone era of cable television that featured constant discussions and presentations of both sides of political topics.

“I’ve said this before: When I first got into media, I came from an era of watching things like Crossfire, Firing Line, and these different shows, and that’s gone now. You used to have a lot more — honestly used to have a lot more debate on Fox (News). High-level people from the Democrat side would go on Fox, and those were the clips that would go viral. I feel like no one debates anymore. I’m not saying this is going to change all that, but there may be follow-up to it. There may be. So, for me, this is what needs to start.”

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