© Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle Via Getty Images
After getting over the initial shock of longtime San Francisco Bay Area radio station KGO abruptly canceling all of its regular news/talk programming Thursday morning for a new format expected to launch Monday, speculation about what comes next for the beloved station soared.
And most of it was motivated by what replaced everyone’s regularly scheduled KGO programming.
Playing on KGO since Thursday morning’s abrupt announcement has been a not-at-all-subtle loop of gambling-related songs — including “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, “Viva Las Vegas” by Elvis Presley and “Money” by Pink Floyd — and promos.
“Coming Monday, a radio station that covers all the action,” a voiceover claims. “The most unique radio station in the Bay Area is coming Monday. Bet on it”
“Start spreading the news. Some serious action is coming Monday,” another chimes in. “Coming Monday, it’s the biggest gamble in Bay Area radio history.”
Reached for comment, KGO’s parent company — Cumulus Media — said no announcements will be made ahead of Monday, according to spokesperson Lisa Dollinger. Audacy, which produces a host of sports betting programming used by Cumulus’ only sports gambling-focused station (newly reformatted WPRV in Providence, Rhode Island), redirected any queries back to Dollinger, saying they couldn’t comment on anything Dollinger wasn’t willing to.
The WPRV reformatting — it went from a business news and talk format to a sports and sports gambling one — is noteworthy because the station made the shift in August 2022.
A sourced report from Matthew Keys at The Desk was the first to report the potential shift of KGO to a sports gambling format, and said, “The name of the station will change to ‘The Spread 810AM.'” In August, Cumulus also began hosting the website 810thespread.com, according to domain records reviewed by SFGATE. Additionally, the Twitter handle @810thespread was secured in October of 2022.
A formal announcement from Cumulus confirming things one way or another is expected early Monday morning.