KHHO (850 AM) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

licensed to

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia ...

. The station serves the Tacoma portion of the Seattle-Tacoma

radio market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

. The station is an affiliate of

Black Information Network Black Information Network (BIN) is a Broadcast network, radio network and content brand owned by iHeartMedia. Launched on June 30, 2020, it is an all-news radio network of stations targeting African American communities, carrying mostly important ...

and is owned by . The studios are in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood northwest of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

. KHHO operates at 10,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s by day; because 850 AM is a clear channel frequency reserved for Class A

KOA KOA (short for Kampgrounds of America) is an American franchise of privately owned campgrounds. Having more than 500 locations across the United States and Canada, it is the world's largest system of privately owned campgrounds. It was founded ...

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

, KHHO must reduce power at night to 1,000 watts. It uses a

directional antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna that radiates or receives greater radio wave power in specific directions. Directional antennas can radiate radio waves in beams, when greater concentration of radiation in a certain directio ...

at all times. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

is located off 30th Avenue East in Tacoma.

History

KTBI

The station went on the air as KTBI in August 1942. The

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

stood for Tacoma Broadcasters Incorporated, the company that owned the station. It was originally on AM 1490, powered at only 250 watts. KTBI later switched to AM 810. That was coupled with a power increase to 1,000 watts but the station became a

daytimer A clear-channel station is a North American AM radio station that has the highest level of protection from interference from other stations, particularly from nighttime skywave signals. This classification exists to ensure the viability of cross ...

, required to

sign off A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonwealth countries exce ...

at sunset to avoid interfering with 50,000 watt KGO in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

KTAC

The station became KTAC on February 1, 1952. That same year, it made its move to AM 850, still powered at 1,000 watts but allowed to broadcast around the clock. In 1956, KTAC moved its studios and offices to the Winthrop Hotel. "85 KTAC" was a

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

competitor to KJR,

KING King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

and KOL throughout the 1970s. Don Wade, Robert O'Smith, John Williams, Ron Erak, Bruce Cannon, Bob Case and Ric Hansen were among the air personalities during its Top 40 dominance of the south Puget Sound area.

KMTT and KHHO

The call letters changed to KMTT on June 19, 1992,

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

ing with then-sister station

KMTT KMTT (910 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Vancouver, Washington, broadcasting to the Portland, Oregon and Clark County, Washington. KMTT is owned by Audacy, Inc. and airs a sports format with programming from ESPN Radio. The stud ...

-FM.

Entercom Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corp., it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning over 220 radio stations across 47 media ...

sold the station to Southwave Wireless, LLC (Steve West and Dan Walker) in 1996. On March 11, 1996, the station changed its call sign to the current KHHO. It launched a

news/talk Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, interviews ...

format ("K-H-2-O, The Voice of the South Sound") featuring Manda Factor, Jeff Walker and Bruce Cannon.

Sports and talk

In 1998, the station was acquired by

The Ackerley Group The Ackerley Group was an American media company founded by businessman Barry Ackerley that owned and operated several radio stations in Seattle, Seattle, Washington, as well as television stations across the United States (primarily in New York ...

and adopted an all-sports format, featuring programming from

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternatively branded platform-agnostically as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the banner "SportsRadio ESPN". The netw ...

, then

Fox Sports Radio Fox Sports Radio is an Radio in the United States, American Sports radio, sports radio network. Based in Los Angeles, California, the network is operated and managed by Premiere Networks in a content partnership with Fox Corporation's Fox Sports ...

CBS Sports Radio Infinity Sports Network is an American sports radio network. It debuted as CBS Sports Radio with hourly sports news updates on September 4, 2012, and with 24/7 programming on January 2, 2013. Infinity Sports Network is programmed by Audacy, Inc ...

and later

NBC Sports Radio NBC Sports Radio was a sports radio network that debuted on September 4, 2012. The network content was produced by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and distributed by Westwood One, which is the corporate successor to the remains of ...

. For a time, it simulcasted KJR. In 2002, KHHO was acquired by

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a company founded by ...

. KHHO changed from sports radio to a

conservative talk Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and other countries devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio. The definition of conservative talk is generally broad enough ...

format, branded as "South Sound Talk 850", on February 8, 2018. During the conservative talk format's run, KHHO primarily aired

nationally syndicated Broadcast syndication is the practice of content owners leasing the right to broadcast their content to other television stations or radio stations, without having an official broadcast network to air it on. It is common in the United States whe ...

talk shows from

Glenn Beck Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and rad ...

, ''

Armstrong & Getty ''Armstrong & Getty'' are the hosts of ''The Armstrong & Getty Show,'' a nationally syndicated morning drive radio show hosted by Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. The talk show format is a mixture of libertarian and conservative political commentary, ...

'',

Todd Schnitt Todd Andrew Schnitt (born January 24, 1966), known professionally as Todd Schnitt and MJ Kelli, is an American radio DJ and was previously a conservative talk radio host. Beginning in October 2020, he began hosting the "MJ Morning Show" on "Q10 ...

, Buck Sexton, Clyde Lewis, and ''Beyond Reality Radio''. The station carried play-by-play of the

Tacoma Rainiers The Tacoma Rainiers are a Minor League Baseball team of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. They are located in Tacoma, Washington, and play their home games at Cheney Stadium, ...

Triple-A

minor league baseball Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a professional baseball organization below Major League Baseball (MLB), constituted of teams affiliated with MLB clubs. It was founded on September 5, 1901, in response to the growing dominance of the National Le ...

team until 2019. It was also Tacoma's

network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

for the

Washington State Cougars The Washington State Cougars (known informally as the Cougs) are the sport, athletic teams that represent Washington State University. Located in Pullman, Washington, WSU is a member of the Pac-12 Conference in NCAA Division I. The athletic pr ...

IMG College Learfield (often stylized as LEARFIELD) is a collegiate sports marketing company, representing more than 200 of the nation's top collegiate properties including the NCAA and its 89 championships, NCAA Football, leading conferences, and many of th ...

network.

Black Information Network

On June 30, 2020, after stunting with a loop of speeches by noted African American personalities the previous day, KHHO flipped to

all-news radio All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to the discussion and broadcast of news. All-news radio is available in both local and radio syndication, syndicated forms, and is carried on both major US satellite radio networks. All-news sta ...

as a charter station of iHeartMedia's new

(BIN), which carries local and national news programming catered towards the African American community. The new format competes with

Lotus Communications Lotus Communications Corporation is a media company that owns numerous radio stations and a few TV stations, and is one of the largest privately owned radio station groups in the United States. Headquarters are located in Los Angeles, and the co ...

' heritage all-news station KNWN/ KNWN-FM.iHeart’s Black Information Network Launches In 15 Markets
, Inside Radio. June 30, 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2020.

References

External links

* {{All-News Radio HHO Radio stations established in 1942 1942 establishments in Washington (state) IHeartMedia radio stations Black Information Network stations All-news radio stations in the United States