The Talk version of KGO-FM was in the early 80s. According to info on the internet, KLOK-FM signed on to 103.7 in 1984, so the talk version lasted only a couple of years. You are right that it was NOT a simulcast. Even the short news breaks were separate from the AM, though they may have used news readers from the AM side - I don't recall. There was very little actual news content though - just brief headlines and weather.
The programming came from ABC's fledgling talk network. I believe it provided the programming for WABC-AM in NYC, which had finally dropped it's long-time Top 40 format. No doubt, it was syndicated to other ABC stations on both AM and FM, and possibly to other stations in markets where there was no interest from ABC affiliates.
The morning host was Owen Spann of KGO-AM, who moved to New York. I believe this was Ronn Owen's opportunity to move to mornings on KGO-AM to replace Spann. Prior to that, Ronn had been doing evenings. Mid-days on KGO-FM was psychologist Dr. Toni Grant, who was a kindler-gentler version of the later Dr. Laura Schelessinger, though not by much. I don't remember afternoons, but evenings were Ira Fistell, a longtime talk radio veteran.
It was a good effort, I thought - but never really caught on. I listened quite a bit, but ultimately preferred the local hosts on KGO-AM, and I think that was what most listeners felt. They later tried some local programming, including Don Chamberlain's Sex Talk. It was a apt title because the show was very explicit in its content. I remember being amazed at the time that they could get away with it without intervention from the FCC. I guess it was because the content had socially redeeming value and was presumably helping people. Chamberlain had done a more censored version of his show a few years earlier on KNEW called California Girls, but it had been cancelled when KNEW flipped from Oldies to Country music.
About a year in, they stopped calling the station KGO-FM and rebranded as "Talk Radio FM 104," almost as if they were afraid the failure would sully the legend that was KGO-AM. It limped along for a few more months until the frequency was sold.
As I recall, the morning news was simulcast. I remember listening when the format cutover from rock to KGO-FM happened, the last song being a Doors song "when the music's, over, turn out the lights..." before the KGO morning news came on. They had Michael Krasny in the evenings, with the obnoxious tagline in the intro "Armed with a PhD..." Don Chamberlain had also been on KYUU doing essentially the same show on Sunday nights prior to the KGO-FM show. The KGO-FM "Sex Talk" had Rosie Allen (obviously before she went big on KGO-AM) doing the news breaks. As risque as the "Sex Talk" show was, the weekend evening show hosted by a gay man (don't recall his name) was even more shocking, including guests from NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. (Sadly I kid you not, hard as it is to believe now, back then you could actually put pedophiles on the air and talk to them as though their views were rational.) I think KGO-FM tried a little too hard to be different at the expense of sanity.
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