LKellerIII
Walk of Fame Participant
Rich Lieberman, the Bay Area radio blogger, has been suggesting that someone willing to write a check could bring 610 back to commercial broadcasting after 13 years as Family Life Radio. He's been not-so-subtly lobbying K-101/KOFY founder Jim Gabbert to be that guy, but no action. The A's could. 610's signal isn't what it used to be (no one's is), but it could be improved well beyond what FLR's doing with it now.
There would be an irony there. James Gabbert - one of FM radio's earliest supporters, one of the earliest proponents of Stereo FM in the mid 50's who ran little KPEN 101.3 on the Peninsula in the mid 1950's - a rare (for those days) stand-alone FM station, who then turned that station into powerhouse K-101 - coming out of a comfortable retirement to helm an anachronistic AM only station.
Keep in mind that Gabbert sold KOFY-TV at the top of it's value when it was still a UPN affiliate, so he certainly doesn't need an income...not that 610 would bring him one. AFAIK, the only things he has done publicly since the sale of KOFY-TV is to come back briefly as the face of the station, doing some videotaped promos - a nostalgia thing that probably just took him a few hours - and he used to occasionally fill in as a talk host on KGO.
And what would he do with 610 do when it wasn't running A's games? Syndicated sports or talk shows? Brokered programming? Neither of those sounds like much fun for a rich guy who's got nothing to prove.