KQKE
Encyclopedia
KKGN is a progressive talk
radio station
licensed to Oakland, California
which serves the San Francisco Bay Area
. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications
.
On August 27, 2007, the station underwent a re-imaging with an environmental
theme as "Green 960." The call letters were changed to the current KKGN on August 13, 2007.
and for helping the career of "the world's greatest disc jockey" Don Sherwood
, prior to his great career at KSFO.
stations in the United States, owned by 1950s radio pioneer Gordon McLendon
.
s.
In early May 1959, KROW began "stunting" with a continuous loop of a song called "Gila Monster," the theme song from a horror film
that Gordon McLendon had co-produced that year. Based on this stunt, it was assumed by the general public - and by the competition - that KROW was to become a Top 40 station along the lines of McLendon's KLIF in Dallas, WAKY
in Louisville or KILT
in Houston, but the station then proceeded to take everyone by surprise by debuting KABL as a beautiful music station. KABL quickly captured the erudite listening audience that disliked rock and roll and soon became the number one radio station in San Francisco, and would remain at or near the top of the ratings for years afterward.
Licensed to Oakland, with a transmitter near the east end of the Bay Bridge, KABL was also noted in radio history for its failure to properly identify its city of license. In its attempt to identify with San Francisco rather than Oakland, KABL used slogans such as "KABL Oakland, serving San Francisco on your San Francisco radio dial, in the air, everywhere over San Francisco." This raised the ire of the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC), resulting in a fine and an admonishment to all broadcasters that they were licensed to serve a particular community, not surrounding ones.
's and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies
, as well as standard material such as Glenn Miller
's "In The Mood". This program didn't last for very long. They also carried the syndicated "When Radio Was" Old-Time Radio anthology series,tending to move its time slot around. In 2000, they briefly switched to a 1960s-1970s soft rock
format, but went back to older music after complaints from their regular audience. In fact, later-years KABL tended to go back and forth on including greater amounts of more "modern" softer pop-rock material then not identified with "traditional" adult standards - Peter & Gordon
and Dusty Springfield
from the '60s, even Kenny Rogers
and Air Supply from the turn of the Eighties.
In September 2004, 960 AM dropped the adult standards programming and the KABL call letters. KABL subsequently reemerged at then co-owned 92.1
FM
in Walnut Creek, California
. The station had a very limited signal beyond its immediate broadcast area however, and in July 2005, switched to an AC
format.
station. This lasted until January 31, 2007, when Clear Channel
Conmmunications discontinued KABL's streaming music. On June 1, 2007, under license from Clear Channel, the Bay Area Radio Museum launched a streaming tribute to KABL on the Internet at KABLradio.com, which featured Beautiful Music
, Easy Listening, Adult Standards, Big Bands, traditional pop and middle-of-the-road music, to represent the various musical styles presented during the station's forty-years on the air.
programs, such as Ed Schultz
, Stephanie Miller
and Thom Hartmann
, and programs from Air America Radio
and other distributors.
The station also airs some local weekend programming. One weekend show, Shake!, airs on Sunday nights and is targeted toward the Bay Area
's gay and lesbian
community. The show also aired on co-owned KLSD
in San Diego until November 2007.
In 2009, the station introduced another weekend program, An Organic Conversation
, airing Saturdays at 10am PST. Presented by Helge Hellberg, executive director of Marin Organic
, and Mark Mulcahy, organic produce consultant, An Organic Conversation
features ecology-based thinking and insight into the organic food
and holistic health
movement.
In 2006, KQKE introduced a local morning show featuring political satirist Will Durst
and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Keeping it Real with Will and Willie aired from 7AM to 10AM Monday through Friday. The show was canceled, and aired its final regular broadcast on September 29, 2006. At that time, the program director indicated that "the pair will still do special broadcasts and appearances for the station."
The Progressive News Hour with John Scott once aired weekdays from 6AM-7AM, leading into Keeping it Real with Will and Willie and was a rundown of local and national news, as well as weather and traffic reports. Shortly after Will and Willie disappeared, Stephanie Miller's morning show arrived to take the 6AM to 9AM slot on KQKE. The Progressive News Hour currently airs from 4-6PM, and its content is now a little more focused on the Bay Area, including more interviews and news about Bay Area people and politics, with a little less repetition of national news stories.
"AM 960 The Quake" was not related to KQAK, a San Francisco station that was on the air from 1982 to 1985 that also called itself "The Quake". However, Paul "Lobster" Wells holds the distinction of working for both 'Quake' stations, as he served as producer and on-air contributor for KQKE's former morning show.
On August 13, 2007, KQKE changed their call sign
to KKGN, with a repositioning as "Green 960" and initially with programming focused on environmental issues.
On January 3, 2012 KKGN will change call letters to KNEW and shift to a mostly conservative talk format with the exception of Randi Rhodes. Other progressive talk programming will relocate to the HD-2 channel of KKSF-FM. The move is part of an broader restructuring of talk programming in Clear Channel's San Francisco cluster.
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
licensed to Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
which serves the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...
.
On August 27, 2007, the station underwent a re-imaging with an environmental
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
theme as "Green 960." The call letters were changed to the current KKGN on August 13, 2007.
History
The Oakland Post-Enquirer wanted a radio station to compete with the Oakland Tribunes KLX. This station went on the air as KROW in 1925, and used those call letters until 1959. It was a full service station that launched the career of comedian Phyllis DillerPhyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
and for helping the career of "the world's greatest disc jockey" Don Sherwood
Don Sherwood (disc jockey)
Don Sherwood was an American radio personality. He was a San Francisco, California disc jockey during the 1950s and 1960s. Billed as "The World's Greatest Disc Jockey," Sherwood spent most of his career hosting a 6 to 9 a.m...
, prior to his great career at KSFO.
KABL
This station is best known as the longtime home of KABL, the successor to KROW and one of the first beautiful musicBeautiful music
Beautiful music is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in American radio from the 1960s through the 1980s...
stations in the United States, owned by 1950s radio pioneer Gordon McLendon
Gordon McLendon
Gordon Barton McLendon was a radio pioneer and pirate radio broadcaster. He has been coined the Maverick of Radio. McLendon is widely credited for perfecting, with great commercial success, the Top 40 radio format during the 1950s and 1960s which was first invented by Todd Storz and for developing...
.
The genesis of KABL
According to longtime McLendon national program director Don Keyes (d. 2006), in his book Gordon McLendon and Me, McLendon wanted to own a station in the San Francisco market, and 960 KROW seemed ideal because of its relatively low dial position and strong coverage of the San Francisco market. The original plan had been to launch a Top 40 format on KROW, but after McLendon and his team visited the market and discovered there were already several Top 40 stations, they decided there wasn't room for another one. As a result, they looked to KIXL, a beautiful-music station in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, market that was enjoying a fair amount of success despite being daytime-only, and decided to launch a similar format on KROW using KIXL's formula of quarter-hour blocks of familiar musical selections (three instrumentals, arranged by tempo, and one vocal) as a template. The new calls were to be KABL, as in San Francisco's legendary cable carCable car
A cable car is any of a variety of transportation systems relying on cables to pull vehicles along or lower them at a steady rate, or a vehicle on these systems.-Aerial lift:Aerial lifts where the vehicle is suspended in the air from a cable:...
s.
In early May 1959, KROW began "stunting" with a continuous loop of a song called "Gila Monster," the theme song from a horror film
The Giant Gila Monster
The Giant Gila Monster is a 1959 black-and-white science fiction film directed by Ray Kellogg, and produced by Ken Curtis. It stars Don Sullivan, Lisa Simone, as well as Fred Graham, Shug Fisher and Bob Thompson. This low-budget B-Movie featured a cast of unknown actors, and the effects included a...
that Gordon McLendon had co-produced that year. Based on this stunt, it was assumed by the general public - and by the competition - that KROW was to become a Top 40 station along the lines of McLendon's KLIF in Dallas, WAKY
WKRD (AM)
WKRD is a sports talk formatted radio station in the Louisville, Kentucky metropolitan area. It is currently owned by Clear Channel Communications, and is known as My Sports 790...
in Louisville or KILT
KILT (AM)
KILT is a Sports/Talk formatted radio station in the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area. The station is currently owned by CBS Radio. KILT shares its call letters with sister station 100.3 FM, a country music station....
in Houston, but the station then proceeded to take everyone by surprise by debuting KABL as a beautiful music station. KABL quickly captured the erudite listening audience that disliked rock and roll and soon became the number one radio station in San Francisco, and would remain at or near the top of the ratings for years afterward.
KABL's format
As KABL, the station combined a mixture of easy listening string and orchestra music with light classics and an occasional Latin cocktail hour tune. KABL was known for presenting poetic vignettes about San Francisco life, a harp interlude between songs, and a cable car bell to announce the news.Licensed to Oakland, with a transmitter near the east end of the Bay Bridge, KABL was also noted in radio history for its failure to properly identify its city of license. In its attempt to identify with San Francisco rather than Oakland, KABL used slogans such as "KABL Oakland, serving San Francisco on your San Francisco radio dial, in the air, everywhere over San Francisco." This raised the ire of the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC), resulting in a fine and an admonishment to all broadcasters that they were licensed to serve a particular community, not surrounding ones.
The final years
In 1997, the station switched to a traditional pop and big band format. At one point, presumably inspired by the " swing dancing/zoot suits " craze of the late '90s, they added a nightly "swing/dance" show several hours in length, which played music by the retro swing groups of the period such as Brian SetzerBrian Setzer
Brian Setzer is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He first found widespread success in the early 1980s with the 1950s-style rockabilly revival group The Stray Cats, and revitalized his career in the late 1990s with a jazz-oriented big band.-Career:Setzer was born in Massapequa, New York...
's and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies
Cherry Poppin' Daddies
The Cherry Poppin' Daddies are an American band established in Eugene, Oregon, in 1989. Formed by Steve Perry and Dan Schmid , the band has experienced many membership changes over the years, with only Perry, Schmid and Dana Heitman currently remaining from the original line-up.The Daddies' music...
, as well as standard material such as Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
's "In The Mood". This program didn't last for very long. They also carried the syndicated "When Radio Was" Old-Time Radio anthology series,tending to move its time slot around. In 2000, they briefly switched to a 1960s-1970s soft rock
Soft rock
Soft rock is a style of music which uses the techniques of rock music to compose a softer, more toned-down sound. Soft rock songs generally tend to focus on themes like love, everyday life and relationships. The genre tends to make heavy use of acoustic guitars, pianos, synthesizers and sometimes...
format, but went back to older music after complaints from their regular audience. In fact, later-years KABL tended to go back and forth on including greater amounts of more "modern" softer pop-rock material then not identified with "traditional" adult standards - Peter & Gordon
Peter & Gordon
Peter and Gordon were a British Invasion-era duo and formed by Peter Asher and Gordon Waller, who achieved fame in 1964 with "A World Without Love", and had several subsequent hits in that era.-History:...
and Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
from the '60s, even Kenny Rogers
Kenny Rogers
Kenneth Donald "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur...
and Air Supply from the turn of the Eighties.
In September 2004, 960 AM dropped the adult standards programming and the KABL call letters. KABL subsequently reemerged at then co-owned 92.1
KKDV
KKDV is an Adult Contemporary radio station located in Walnut Creek, California, broadcasting at 92.1 MHz. With the call letters KKDV , it broadcasts under the slogan "Diablo Valley's Hometown Station." The station is located in central Contra Costa County in the Diablo Valley close to Mt....
FM
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
in Walnut Creek, California
Walnut Creek, California
Walnut Creek is an incorporated city located east of the city of Oakland. It lies in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. While not as large as neighboring Concord, Walnut Creek serves as the business and entertainment hub for the neighboring cities within central Contra Costa...
. The station had a very limited signal beyond its immediate broadcast area however, and in July 2005, switched to an AC
Adult contemporary music
Adult contemporary music is a broad style of popular music that ranges from lush 1950s and 1960s vocal music to predominantly ballad-heavy music with varying degrees of rock influence, as well as a radio format that plays such music....
format.
KABL reborn on the Internet
KABL then began broadcasting as an internet radioInternet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
station. This lasted until January 31, 2007, when Clear Channel
Clear channel
A clear-channel station is an AM band Radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. Usually known as class A stations since 1982, they are occasionally still referred to by their former...
Conmmunications discontinued KABL's streaming music. On June 1, 2007, under license from Clear Channel, the Bay Area Radio Museum launched a streaming tribute to KABL on the Internet at KABLradio.com, which featured Beautiful Music
Beautiful music
Beautiful music is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in American radio from the 1960s through the 1980s...
, Easy Listening, Adult Standards, Big Bands, traditional pop and middle-of-the-road music, to represent the various musical styles presented during the station's forty-years on the air.
Progressive talk as KQKE and KKGN
Replacing KABL on September 28, 2004 were new call letters KQKE and a progressive talk format. The Quake's tag lines are "The Bay Area Home of Air America", "Talk Radio for the Rest of Us" and "Talk Radio from the Left". The station carries a mix of Dial GlobalDial Global
Dial Global is a radio syndication company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Triton Media Group and is a sister company to Townsquare Media, both of which are owned by Oaktree Capital Management....
programs, such as Ed Schultz
Ed Schultz
Edward Andrew "Ed" Schultz Is an American television and radio host and a liberal political commentator . He is the host of The Ed Show, a daily news talk program on MSNBC, and The Ed Schultz Show, a talk radio show, nationally syndicated by Dial Global, promising "straight talk."-Early...
, Stephanie Miller
Stephanie Miller
Stephanie Catherine Miller is an American comedienne and host of The Stephanie Miller Show, a progressive talk radio program produced in Los Angeles and syndicated nationally by Dial Global. Talkers magazine ranked her as the 24th most important radio talk show host in America for 2010.-Early...
and Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann is an American radio host, author, former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, and progressive political commentator. His nationally-syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, airs in the United States and has 2.75 million listeners a week...
, and programs from Air America Radio
Air America Radio
Air America was an American radio network specializing in progressive talk programming...
and other distributors.
The station also airs some local weekend programming. One weekend show, Shake!, airs on Sunday nights and is targeted toward the Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
's gay and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
community. The show also aired on co-owned KLSD
KLSD
KLSD is a sports station based in San Diego, California. The sports programming began on November 12, 2007. Previously, KLSD's format was progressive talk radio....
in San Diego until November 2007.
In 2009, the station introduced another weekend program, An Organic Conversation
An Organic Conversation
is a national radio show broadcasted weekly on across the country. The show is hosted by Organic Food Advocate , Produce Expert Mark Mulcahy, and Holistic Chef...
, airing Saturdays at 10am PST. Presented by Helge Hellberg, executive director of Marin Organic
Marin Organic
Marin Organic is a non-profit 501 association of organic producers headquartered in Point Reyes Station, California. Founded in 1999 with the goal of creating the first all-organic county, Marin Organic staff and board work with government officials, community groups and organizations, fellow...
, and Mark Mulcahy, organic produce consultant, An Organic Conversation
An Organic Conversation
is a national radio show broadcasted weekly on across the country. The show is hosted by Organic Food Advocate , Produce Expert Mark Mulcahy, and Holistic Chef...
features ecology-based thinking and insight into the organic food
Organic food
Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...
and holistic health
Holistic health
Holistic health is a concept in medical practice upholding that all aspects of people's needs, psychological, physical and social should be taken into account and seen as a whole. As defined above, the holistic view on treatment is widely accepted in medicine...
movement.
In 2006, KQKE introduced a local morning show featuring political satirist Will Durst
Will Durst
Will Durst is an American political satirist; he considers himself a modern mix of Mort Sahl and Will Rogers....
and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Keeping it Real with Will and Willie aired from 7AM to 10AM Monday through Friday. The show was canceled, and aired its final regular broadcast on September 29, 2006. At that time, the program director indicated that "the pair will still do special broadcasts and appearances for the station."
The Progressive News Hour with John Scott once aired weekdays from 6AM-7AM, leading into Keeping it Real with Will and Willie and was a rundown of local and national news, as well as weather and traffic reports. Shortly after Will and Willie disappeared, Stephanie Miller's morning show arrived to take the 6AM to 9AM slot on KQKE. The Progressive News Hour currently airs from 4-6PM, and its content is now a little more focused on the Bay Area, including more interviews and news about Bay Area people and politics, with a little less repetition of national news stories.
"AM 960 The Quake" was not related to KQAK, a San Francisco station that was on the air from 1982 to 1985 that also called itself "The Quake". However, Paul "Lobster" Wells holds the distinction of working for both 'Quake' stations, as he served as producer and on-air contributor for KQKE's former morning show.
On August 13, 2007, KQKE changed their call sign
Call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...
to KKGN, with a repositioning as "Green 960" and initially with programming focused on environmental issues.
On January 3, 2012 KKGN will change call letters to KNEW and shift to a mostly conservative talk format with the exception of Randi Rhodes. Other progressive talk programming will relocate to the HD-2 channel of KKSF-FM. The move is part of an broader restructuring of talk programming in Clear Channel's San Francisco cluster.