
KOGO (AM)

KOGO (600 AM) is a commercial radio station in San Diego, California. The station is owned by iHeartMedia and airs a news/talk format, featuring local news and syndicated talk shows. The station's studios and offices are located in San Diego's Kearny Mesa neighborhood on the northeast side.
Powered at 5,000 watts day and night, the AM signal is one of the strongest in Southern California. KOGO uses a directional antenna with its two-tower array transmitter located off 60th Street at Old Memory Lane in the Emerald Hills neighborhood of San Diego. The signal pattern generally follows the Pacific Coast from Baja California, Mexico, to Santa Barbara. Because of its reach, KOGO is one of the primary Emergency Alert System stations for the San Diego radio market. The KWFN antenna is at the top of one tower and the KLNV antenna is at the top of the other.
KOGO is the first, and the only AM, radio station in the San Diego market to broadcast in HD Radio. The station is simulcast on KMYI-HD2 (94.1-HD2).
History.
KOGO was originally licensed on June 30, 1925, at 1220 kHz at 250 watts from the top of the U.S. Grant Hotel. The call letters in 1925 were KFWV. In 1926 the callsign was changed to KFSD and the station moved down the dial to 620 AM. KFSD stood for First in San Diego, as the station was the first commercially licensed station in San Diego. (KFBC/KGB was an amateur station that was not full-time.) In 1928, the station was facing bankruptcy, so it was sold to Thomas Sharp (who founded Sharp HealthCare in San Diego). In 1931 KFSD became an affiliate of the NBC Blue Network.
In 1939 KFSD was slated to move from the U.S. Grant to a former country club east of downtown called Emerald Hills. But the station did not move until 1948 due to the proximity of Emerald Hills to the Chollas Naval towers. In 1948, when KFSD moved to Emerald Hills, the facility was outfitted with the finest equipment available, primarily from RCA. Emerald Hills was built to completely house the KFSD studios, transmitter, and offices. From Emerald Hills, San Diego's first FM station signed on the air in 1948: KFSD-FM.
In 1953, KFSD-TV (now KGTV, and not directly related to today's KFSD) became the second TV station to sign on the air in San Diego, at channel 10 on the VHF band. In 1961, 600 KFSD was changing formats, so it was decided to change the call letters. The owners at the time fed facts about San Diego and its people into a new device called a computer, which was then asked to give them the perfect call letters for the station. The IBM computer gave them the call letters KOGO. Thus, in 1961 the legendary San Diego station known as KOGO (pronounced "Ko-Go") was born.
In 1972, Time Life Broadcasting (owners of KOGO-AM-FM-TV since 1961) sold the combo, but due to FCC regulations at the time the stations had to be split off. 600 KOGO was sold to Retlaw (Walter spelled backwards) which was Disney's broadcast division. Channel 10 was sold to McGraw Hill Publishing and the call letters were changed to KGTV (which stands for KOGO-TV). The station at 94.1 FM got back the callsign KFSD, but was sold many times over; it was primarily a classical music station. The FM outlet changed callsigns to KFSD, then KXGL (for the Eagle), then to KJQY (for "K-Joy"), and finally in 2001 to KMYI. The AM station changed its branding to "KOGO Radio 60", then to "KOGO Radio 6", then to "KOGO Radio 6, the radio magazine".
The Shadacks (Ed and his nephew Tom) took over KOGO and 106.5 KPRI, and ran both of the stations into the ground by 1982. In 1983 both stations changed calls to KLZZ-AM-FM (went under the name "Class FM/AM"). KLZZ flopped, and that is when Edens Broadcasting bought the stations and turned both of them into CHR stations Q-106 (KKLQ-AM-FM). In the early 1990s, Par Broadcasting purchased the stations and ended the simulcast, flipping the AM station to a talk format on April 25, 1994. Par bought back the call letters KOGO for 600. The KOGO call sign, during the hiatus, was used in Ventura, California on the 1590 AM frequency (now KVTA). At that time, 1590 was owned by Jack Woods (formerly Charlie of Charlie and Harrigan on KFMB and KCBQ). In 1997, Par Broadcasting sold its San Diego stations to Jacor/Citicasters, who in turn merged with Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) in 1999. KOGO was reunited with its original FM sister in 1998 when Jacor/Citicasters purchased the radio properties of Nationwide Communications.
As of 2018, Emerald Hills is still the home of the KOGO transmitter and its two-tower directional array. The KOGO towers are twin self-supported Ideco towers. The original 1948 RCA BTA-5F 5-kilowatt transmitter is still in place but no longer used; it is being acquired by a private collector. The BTA-5F was designed by John Vassos, the father of American art deco design; the 5F was named "The Train" by Vassos, as it looked like a train speeding by. Most of the others have either been destroyed, partially scrapped, or put into private collections. The 1170 KCBQ BTA-5F was scrapped and most of the parts given to KOGO; the pieces of KCBQ's transmitter are still at KOGO for the BTA-5F. There are three remaining complete RCA BTA-5F's: KRKD/KIIS (Brad Hollander collection), WFIL (Mike Dorrough collection), and WIBW Topeka.
KOGO programming began simulcasting on KUSS on November 7, 2011. This simulcast ended on November 16, 2012 at 7 p.m., when KOGO-FM began stunting with Christmas music. This was most likely due to the fact that, unlike many other talk radio stations in the United States that simulcast programming on the FM dial, the FM simulcast never improved KOGO's ratings.
On October 14, 2014, KOGO added three news blocks to its program schedule.
Sports.
KOGO was the co-flagship station of the San Diego Fleet of the now-defunct Alliance of American Football alongside KLSD. The AAF did not complete its inaugural 2019 season.
Until the 2012–2013 academic year, KOGO was the official broadcast home for the San Diego State Aztecs football and men's basketball programs. However, some basketball games were transferred to KLSD if the football team was also playing at the same time, or if it was a weekday early-evening game on the West Coast. As of the 2013–2014 season, Aztec football and basketball games began airing on XEPRS-AM (The Mighty 1090).
KOGO carried San Diego Padres games from the team's debut in the National League in 1969 through 1978, then again in the early 2000s, before losing the rights to XEPRS-AM in 2003.
KOGO was also the radio home of the San Diego Chargers in the early 1980s. Ted Leitner handled play-by-play with Pat Curran in the booth. Pre- and post-game show duties were handled by Randy Hahn and Jim Laslavic. The games were eventually simulcast on KLZZ (106.5 FM). In 1985, XETRA took the broadcast rights and Leitner was replaced by Lee Hamilton, who had come in from Phoenix.
California wildfires.
During the October 2007 California wildfires, news, information, and talk from KOGO was simulcast on every San Diego-area station owned by Clear Channel from the night of October 21 to the evening of October 24. KOGO dropped all commercial breaks during this period. KOGO was also simulcast on Channel 24/7 of XM Satellite Radio, which the service uses for emergency information. Regular programming returned on the night of October 24 at 11 p.m. with the syndicated "Coast to Coast AM".
News.
In May 2009, KOGO's newscasts outside of morning and early evening were being produced by Los Angeles sister station KFI. It was also disclosed that some newscasts in the evening were "taped".