KKGO
| File:KKGO Go Country.png File:K-Mozart.png  |
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| City of license | Los Angeles, California Area Served: Los Angeles Metro Area |
|---|---|
| Branding | Go Country 105 |
| Slogan | "Southern California's Country Station" |
| Frequency | 105.1 (MHz) (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | February 18, 1959 |
| Format | FM/HD1: Country HD2: K-Mozart Classical music HD3: Unforgettable Adult Standards HD4: "Go Country Classics" Classic Country |
| ERP | 18,000 watts |
| HAAT | 880.0 meters (2,887.1 ft) |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 43939 |
| Callsign meaning | KK-GO Country 105 (current on-air moniker) |
| Former callsigns | KBCA (1959-1979) KKGO (1979-2000) KMZT (2000-2007) |
| Owner | Mount Wilson Broadcasting |
| Sister stations | KMZT |
| Webcast | KKGO Webstream (limited to California) KKGO-HD2 Webstream KKGO-HD3 Webstream |
| Website | gocountry105.com kmozart.com (HD2) |
KKGO is a commercial radio station located in Los Angeles, California, broadcasting on 105.1 FM. KKGO airs a country music format, branded as "Go Country 105".
KKGO-FM was founded by Saul Levine and is still owned by his corporation, Mount Wilson Broadcasting,[1] and remains the only independently owned-and-operated FM radio station licensed to Los Angeles.
Contents
History
KBCA/Classical 105.1/K-Mozart
Saul Levine launched the station at 105.1 in February 1959 as KBCA, and it was one of the first FM stations to broadcast from Mount Wilson. In 1979, the station changed its callsign to KKGO.[2] This was prompted by a court challenge from KABC, according to one local podcaster.[3] The station aired a traditional jazz music format until 1989.
When cross-town KFAC dropped classical music in favor of a popular music format on September 20, 1989, KKGO adopted KFAC's displaced classical music format. The official switch from jazz to classical occurred on January 1, 1990, and began with selections from Franz Lehár's operetta The Land of Smiles. In 2000, the call letters were changed to KMZT to reflect on their rebranding as "K-Mozart". The KKGO call letters were then moved to AM 1260.
HD Radio
The station began broadcasting an HD Radio digital signal in 2005, and Mount Wilson Broadcasting started multicasting the programming of its two AM stations, KKGO in Beverly Hills and XESURF in the Tijuana, Mexico-San Diego border area, on its HD2 signal, which then had an adult standards format known as "Unforgettable 540 & 1260". While the AM signals combine to cover much of the Southern California area, they were still weak, especially at night in the Orange County area, and the FM HD2 simulcast helped boost the reach of the format. The Adult Standards programming, Unforgettable is available on KKGO 105.1 FM HD3.[4]
Go Country 105 & K-Mozart
When longtime country station KZLA flipped formats in August 2006, it left the two largest media markets in the United States and three of the top four without a full-time country music station. The New York area had been without a country station since WYNY signed off in 2003. (Cumulus Radio Group's "Nash-FM," debuted on January 21, 2013, with 94.7 FM in New York being the first country station to use the "Nash FM" branding). In the San Francisco Bay Area, KZBR also changed format in 2005, only to return to country as "The Wolf" after Entercom took over the station in March 2007. The other top-3 market, Chicago, is served by WUSN.
At 5 a.m. February 26, 2007, in a surprise move announced only three days earlier, citing declining ad revenues for the classical format, Mt. Wilson Broadcasters flipped K-Mozart to country as "Go Country 105." Saul Levine swapped the formats and callsigns of FM 105.1 with AM 1260, bringing the country format and the KKGO calls back to FM, while the classical format and the KMZT calls were moved to AM, with the "K-Mozart" (XESURF continued to play country music, first simulcasting KKGO's format, but later splitting its programming from that of KKGO). After playing Mozart's "String Quartet no. 23 in F, K.590", Los Angeles was left once again without a commercial classical music station on the analog FM dial.
"Go Country 105" brought country music back to the FM dial after a six-month absence. This was a dream come true for the country music fans who had spent those six months writing letters, making phone calls, wearing "I Want My Country Music Back" shirts, handing out and wearing Save Country Music Ribbons, letting the broadcasters and many others know that there were many reasons that the country music genre would be a viable asset for an L.A. radio station.
The first song on the new KKGO was "Only in America" by Brooks & Dunn.
On May 31, 2009, the classical format of K-Mozart returned to KKGO 105.1 HD2.
Unforgettable HD 3
In March 2015, the HD 3 sub channel flipped from Country Classics to Unforgettable, an Adult Standards format with music primarily by artists like Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, Harry Connick, Jr., Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Mel Tormè, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Steve Lawrence, Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble, and dozens of others and is commonly known as The Great American Songbook. This took the subchannel back to a format similar to the one it aired a few years prior under the banner of Retro 105. However, Retro 105 was only heard in Los Angeles whereas Unforgettable is classified as syndicated and is heard in Monterey, CA on KNRY[5] as well.
Go Country Online Stream Limited
On May 8, 2013, the station announced it was limiting its streaming services to California listeners. It was due to rising royalty rates from the exponential growth of the number of streamers on the stream. Their sister stations have not made any changes to their stream and has currently been limited to Go Country 105 only.[6] As of 2015, the stream has since been broadened to all United States residents and made available through iHeartRadio.
On-Air Staff
The current lineup (as of August 31, 2015) is as follows.[7]
- Morning: Graham Bunn
- Mid-Days: Christine Martindale
- Afternoon Drive: Paul Freeman
- Evenings: Go Country 105 Music
- Weekends: Laurie Allen, Gary Campbell, & CMT Country Countdown USA with Lon Helton
See also
- Brian Douglas, KKGO 1st Country Morning Radio Personality
References
- ↑ http://www.mountwilsoninc.com/
- ↑ "Chuck Niles, 76; Voice of L.A.'s Jazz Radio", Los Angeles Times obituary, March 17, 2004
- ↑ Smooth Jazz In Los Angeles
- ↑ http://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?id=36 HD Radio Guide for Los Angeles
- ↑ Radioinsight.com
- ↑ "LA's KKGO Limits Online Stream Coverage"
- ↑ Go Country On-Air Schedule, November 24, 2013
External links
- Official website
- Query the FCC's FM station database for KKGO
- Radio-Locator information on KKGO
- Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KKGO
- Countryboards.com, Country Music Message board set up as a command center for fans to get country music back on FM radio after losing KZLA.
- "Johnny Cash Would Have Been Proud -- KKGO 105.1 Flips Over to Country", Press Release Regarding Country Music Returning to FM Radio in Los Angeles.
- "Levine’s KKGO/KMZT Embrace HD Radio", RWOnline, Radio World Newspaper, May 23, 2007
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