A set of historic call letters will vanish from the radio dial on New Year’s Day. Come Jan. 1, KGO San Francisco (810) will adopt the KSFO calls long associated with the talk format that last month moved from 560 to 810, replacing the short-lived sports-wagering formatted “810 The Spread.” In turn, KSFO will adopt the new calls KZAC.

The KGO calls have been attached to the 50,000-watt 810 frequency in the Bay Area since Jan. 8, 1924. The once legendary AM ruled San Francisco radio for decades.

With its 50,000-watt signal and the care and feeding of manager Mickey Luckoff, KGO used to be where the action was on the Bay Area dial. The station was consistently perched atop the ratings for nearly 30 years.

“It was a crown jewel in ABC’s portfolio of radio stations,” Chris Berry, Executive VP of News/Talk Programming at iHeartMedia, says in a Facebook post.

But that historic streak was over by 2010. By then all-news KCBS had added an FM signal, more listeners were leaving the AM dial and measurement had changed from diaries that favored legacy stations to the more exacting PPM. That was also the year of the high-profile exit of Luckoff, who managed the station for 35 years.

“The product had long since been destroyed by inferior operators,” Luckoff laments in a Facebook post about the pending disappearance of the legendary call letters. “The three call letters of course may never be revived. RIP with fabulous memories of great talent and dedicated employees.”

KGO was still a five-share station in 2010 but its ratings, stature and billings were slowly disintegrating. It posted a 1.7 share (6+) in Nielsen’s September 2022 survey, when owner Cumulus Media announced it would retire the station’s long running news/talk format.

“The KGO story was definitely a clinic in the destruction of an iconic community asset, San Francisco’s once respected and top radio station,” says Tom Langmyer, President/CEO of Great Lakes Media Acquisition & Advisory Group and a former radio manager and programmer.

And See John Schneider on April 11th at Radio Central when he will be our featured guest speaker. His topic will be ‘Radio’s First Decade – 1920 – 1929’.