KFWV and KFSD

The station was originally licensed on June 30, 1925. It broadcast at 1320 kilocycles, with a power of 250 watts, from the top of the U.S. Grant Hotel. The call sign was KFWV. In 1926, the call sign changed to KFSD and the station moved down the dial to 620 AM. KFSD was the first commercially licensed station in the city (KFSD stands for the ' First in San Diego ').

(KFBC/KGB was an amateur station that was not full-time.) In 1928, KFSD was facing bankruptcy, so it was sold to Thomas Sharp (who founded Sharp HealthCare in San Diego). (A station in Escondido, not related to this station, now uses the KFSD callsign.)

In 1931, KFSD became an affiliate of the NBC Red Network.^[3] It carried NBC's dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and big band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio." KFSD was owned by the Airfan Radio Corporation. In the 1930s, the station also moved to its current frequency of 600 kHz.

In 1939, KFSD was slated to move its studios from the U.S. Grant Hotel 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 top-quality equipment, 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 (now KMYI). KFSD-FM largely simulcast the AM station. Then in 1953, KFSD-TV (now KGTV) became the third TV station to sign on the air in San Diego, at channel 10 on the VHF band. Because KFSD 600 was an NBC Radio affiliate, KFSD-TV also carried NBC television programs (although they switched to ABC in 1977).

KOGO

In 1961, 600 KFSD was changing formats, so management also 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 sign for the station. The IBM computer gave them the call letters KOGO. Thus, in 1961 the San Diego station known as KOGO (pronounced "Ko-Go") was born.

In 1972, Time Life Broadcasting (owners of KOGO-AM-FM-TV since 1961) decided to sell its San Diego broadcast properties. 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 call sign KFSD but was sold many times over. It was primarily a classical music station. The FM outlet changed its call letters 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. It had a mixed format of middle of the road (MOR) music, talk and sports.

KLZZ and KKLQ

The Shadacks (Ed and his nephew Tom) took over KOGO and 106.5 KPRI, but both stations had poor ratings in the early 1980s. In 1983 both stations changed to KLZZ-AM-FM (using the name "Class FM/AM") with a soft AC format. But Class struggled in the ratings.

Edens Broadcasting bought the stations and turned them into Top 40/CHR KKLQ-AM-FM, using the moniker "Q106." Most music listening for young people had switched to FM by this point. But the signal for AM 600 was able to serve the remaining listeners who only had AM radios in their cars, or lived in Northern San Diego County where the FM's signal is spotty. The station sometimes would mention that AM 600 could be heard in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Return to KOGO

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.^[4] Par bought back the call letters KOGO for 600 AM. The KOGO call sign, during the hiatus, was used in Ventura, California on the 1590 AM frequency (now KVTA).^[5] At that time, 1590 was owned by Jack Woods (formerly Charlie of Charlie and Harrigan on KFMB and KCBQ).^[6][7]

In 1997, Par Broadcasting sold its San Diego stations to Jacor/Citicasters, which in turn merged with Clear Channel Communications. Clear Channel became iHeartMedia in 1999. KOGO was reunited with its original FM sister in 1998 when Jacor/Citicasters purchased the radio properties of Nationwide Communications, including 94.1 FM.

On October 14, 2014, KOGO added three news blocks to its program schedule.^[8] Over time, the news block in morning drive time has remained but the midday and afternoon news blocks have been switched to talk programming. In May 2009, KOGO's newscasts outside of morning and early evening were being produced by Los Angeles sister station 640 KFI. It was also disclosed that some newscasts in the evening were prerecorded.

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. This continued 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 used for emergency information. Regular programming on KOGO returned on the night of October 24 at 11 p.m. with the syndicated Coast to Coast AM.

95.7 simulcast

KOGO programming began simulcasting on 95.7 KUSS on November 7, 2011.^[9] Management saw fewer young and middle-aged listeners switching to AM so the plan was KOGO would gain younger listeners by being on the FM dial.

The simulcast ended on November 16, 2012, at 7 p.m., when KOGO-FM began stunting with Christmas music.^[10] After Christmas it switched to Rhythmic Adult Contemporary music as KSSX. The combined ratings of AM 600 and FM 95.7 didn't make the simulcast as profitable as keeping the AM as a news/talk outlet and switching the FM to a music format.

Former logo