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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

Keith Olbermann: Clinton/Lewinsky Coverage Made Me Look For MSNBC Exit

“I tried to quit the show. The ratings went up. I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story 24/7. The ratings went up.”

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Media stories and analysis has become a regular point of focus for Keith Olbermann on his Countdown podcast. On his latest episode, Olbermann took listeners down memory lane to explain how he wound up talking politics on television and how he first decided that he couldn’t do it anymore.

While he had joined NBC months earlier, it was Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky that changed the trajectory of his role there. Olbermann explained that he had been doing some work for both the fledgling news network, hosting a general interest show, and working on NBC’s coverage of Major League Baseball.

Coverage of Clinton and Lewinsky became the bulk of his show every night, drawing tremendous ratings success. MSNBC made Olbermann the anchor of its coverage of the 1998 State of the Union Address. He hosted a pre-speech show and a show that followed NBC’s analysis. During that “postgame show,” Olbermann says an NBC News executive delivered big news to him.

“The speech did in 0.8. Brokaw and Russert on the wrap up did an 0.6. Since 11:00, you’ve been doing a 1.7,” Olbermann says he was told. “You have had three times the audience of Tom Brokaw, three times the audience of the old man himself. This isn’t just people crossing over from NBC to watch more. This is people watching the speech, turning off the old man, then turning back at 11 to watch you.”

He also found out that the AP had used a joke he told on that postgame show in its official recap of the State of the Union Address. All of the success being tied to a presidential sex scandal made Olbermann uneasy.

“I had this sudden horrible feeling that the usually slow to decide American viewing public had instantly concluded that for some reason, elusive even to me, they really like to hear me talk about the whereabouts of the president’s penis.”

Olbermann says it was not long after that that NBC News executives came to him with the idea of creating a nightly show all about the scandal. In order to entice him to give up a planned vacation and commit to the show, Olbermann says he was offered the chance to anchor NBC Nightly News on multiple occasions.

The show eventually launched. It was a ratings success for MSNBC, something Olbermann says he did his best to reverse.

“For months. I mocked the story. The ratings went up,” he said. “I tried to quit the show. The ratings went up. I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story 24/7. The ratings went up. Fox Sports approached me and offered me five times what NBC was paying me to go out to LA to do their sportscast. LA., which was kind of near Hawaii, nowhere near the Clinton-Lewinsky story. And the ratings went up.”

The network’s dedication to the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal is what eventually drove Olbermann back to sports. It was seeing an NBC News promo for Jane Pauley’s interview with another woman accusing the former president of an extramarital affair that had him call his agent to learn more about FOX Sports’s offer.

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News Audio

Tony Katz: Criticism of Kayleigh McEnany ‘A Pathetic Move From Trump’

“Kayleigh McEnany was his press secretary. Kayleigh McEnany was on CNN defending him back in the day.”

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FOX News has had its share of struggles with conservative pundits this year. Plenty of voices that used to only praise the network turned on it following the firing of Tucker Carlson. On Wednesday morning though, Tony Katz, a prominent conservative voice in Indiana, was defending one of FOX’s high profile talents.

Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday night to complain that FOX’s Kayleigh McEnany deliberately shared poll numbers that made his lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis amongst Republicans look smaller than it actually is.

“Kayleigh McEnany was his press secretary. Kayleigh McEnany was on CNN defending him back in the day,” Katz said Wednesday on WIBC in Indianapolis. “This post is stupid.”

Although he has been a supporter of the former president in the past, Katz said that Trump’s attack on a former staffer that was charged with defending him and his policy is proof that he has no loyalty to anyone but himself.

McEnany served as the White House Press Secretary for the final year of Donald Trump’s term in office. She left the post following the inauguration of Joe Biden in January of 2021. She has been on FOX News since March of that year.

“This is a pathetic move from Trump. Unnecessary,” Katz said. “This is the lashing out of an angry old man who can’t seem to find his pudding cup. And that’s not the way I want to think of him and that’s not the message he wants to move forward! If he wants to get elected, this is ridiculous. I hate the unforced error. I hate it. But he’s so good at it. He can’t figure out how not to do it.”

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News Audio

Sid Rosenberg: Don’t Be a Radio Voice; Talk Like You Talk

“It’s not easy producing for me. The show ends, and a minute later, I’m asking who’s on tomorrow.”

Ryan Hedrick

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Photo Credit: WABC Radio

Sid Rosenberg, WABC Radio’s morning host, emphasized the importance for aspiring broadcasters to remain true to themselves and avoid pretending to be someone they are not. Rosenberg shared this advice while speaking with his former producer Victor Bermudez, who has achieved great success by winning four Emmy Awards for his contributions at Telemundo.

Rosenberg made the remarks during his Tuesday morning show.

“I’ve said this to Marc Malusis at WFAN; his wife once called me and said, ‘Why isn’t Marc having more success at WFAN and I said because he’s trying to be [Mike] Francesa. Don’t be a radio voice; talk like you talk.”

Rosenberg mentioned that throughout his career, he has encountered individuals like Joy Taylor from Fox Sports Radio, who faced tremendous expectations due to her brother, Jason Taylor, being a former NFL player. These individuals had to navigate significant pressure to succeed in the entertainment industry.

“Overnight, she (Taylor) wanted to be the next Barbara Walters,” Rosenberg said. “I just told her to take it easy, slow down and be yourself.”

Rosenberg said he had similar advice for Bermudez, who admittedly struggled to find his identity in the industry due to many factors.

“I’ve had a lot of producers over the years; it’s not easy producing for me, the show ends, and a minute later, I’m asking who’s on tomorrow,” said Rosenberg. “

Bermudez, who served as Rosenberg’s producer at WQAM in Miami, joined Rosenberg with minimal prior on-air experience.

“I had tons of fun working on the Sid Rosenberg Show during my time with you in Miami; I will add that it was life-changing,” said Bermudez. “It changed my life professionally because I came into business trying to be something I was not.”

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