KKOB (AM)

KKOB (770 kHz) is a commercial radio station, licensed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and owned by Cumulus Media. Its news/talk format is branded "96.3 Newsradio KKOB", reflecting a simulcast with co-owned KKOB-FM. The station's studios and offices are located in Downtown Albuquerque. KKOB is the oldest station in New Mexico and is the state's primary entry point for the Emergency Alert System.

KKOB's transmitter site is off Second Street NW in North Valley. It is a Class B facility, operating around the clock with 50,000 watts, the maximum allowed in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). During the daytime, it uses a non-directional signal that reaches most of New Mexico's populated areas, as well as parts of Colorado and Arizona. At night, it uses a directional antenna, primarily to limit its signal to the east in the direction of WABC in New York City, the primary class A station on 770 AM. Even with this restriction, it can be heard across most of the western half of North America with a good radio. To compensate for KKOB's weaker nighttime signal in Santa Fe, since 1986 it has been simulcast on 770 kHz by a 230-watt experimental synchronous transmitter located in that city.

KKOB-AM-FM provide local news and weather updates around the clock, traffic "on the 7's" and national news updates from ABC News Radio. On weekdays, the schedule features mostly local talk shows including Bob Clark in morning drive time, Brandon Vogt middays, TJ Trout afternoons and Eric Strauss in the evening. The rest of the schedule is nationally syndicated talk radio programs: The Vince Coglianese Show, The Mark Levin Show, Red Eye Radio and America in The Morning.

Weekends include shows on money, health, home repair, gardening, cars, pets, travel, and technology, some of which are paid brokered programming. Terry Travis hosts a local talk show on weekend mornings. Syndicated programs on weekends include The Chris Plante Show, World Travel with Rudy Maxa and Sunday Nights with Bill Cunningham.

KKOB broadcasts University of New Mexico Lobos basketball and football games. Some other Lobo sports can also be heard on co-owned sports radio station KNML 610 AM.

The station began as KOB, first licensed by the federal government on April 5, 1922. However, the person most responsible for its founding, Ralph Willis Goddard, by this time already had extensive experience with radio. Goddard was the dean of the Engineering School at New Mexico College Of Agriculture And Mechanic Arts (now New Mexico State University). It was located in State College, New Mexico, near Las Cruces. Goddard headed the school's Radio Club, and in the spring of 1920, arranged for the university to be issued a license for an experimental radio station, which was issued the call sign 5XD. In addition to experimental work, this station was used for such things as reporting sport scores. Eventually the station expanded from its initial Morse code transmissions to audio programs, including entertainment broadcasts.

Initially, there were no formal standards for radio stations making broadcasts intended for the general public. However, effective December 1, 1921, the United States Department of Commerce, which supervised radio at this time, issued a regulation requiring that stations making broadcasts intended for the general public now had to operate under a "Limited Commercial" license. On April 5, 1922, the university was issued a broadcasting station license with the randomly assigned call letters KOB.

The 1928 passage of the Davis Amendment required an equitable assignment of radio facilities within 5 regions of the United States. Effective November 11, 1928, as part of a major reassignment of stations under the Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, KOB was assigned to 1180 kHz, one of Region 5's high-powered "clear channel" frequencies. Although this allowed unlimited operation during daylight hours, nighttime hours were shared with KEX in Portland, Oregon, with KOB receiving 1/3rd of the after-sunset hours, and KEX assigned the rest.