KIRO (AM)
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| City | Seattle, Washington |
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| Broadcast area | Puget Sound region, Washington |
| Branding | 710 ESPN Seattle |
| Frequency | 710 kHz 97.3 MHz HD2 (HD Radio) |
| First air date | April 27, 1927 |
| Format | Sports |
| Power | 50,000 watts (Day and Night) |
| Class | A |
| Facility ID | 6362 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 47°23′55″N 122°26′0″W / 47.39861°N 122.43333°WCoordinates: 47°23′55″N 122°26′0″W / 47.39861°N 122.43333°W |
| Former callsigns | 650 KPCB (1927-1937) |
| Affiliations | ESPN Radio, Seattle Mariners Radio Network, Seattle Seahawks, Washington State Cougars (football and men's basketball) |
| Owner |
Bonneville International (Bonneville International Corporation) |
| Sister stations |
KTTH KIRO-FM |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 710sports.com |
KIRO-AM is a radio station based in Seattle, Washington on the shores of Lake Union with 2 towers on Maury Island, broadcasting on 710 kHz in the AM radio spectrum. The station's format is sports radio and it is affiliated with ESPN Radio. The station's studios are located on Eastlake Avenue in Seattle's Eastlake district.
KIRO began broadcasting on April 27, 1927, as the 100-watt station KPCB 650. Its founder was Moritz Thomsen of the Pacific Coast Biscuit Company. Among its announcers was Chet Huntley, later of television's Huntley-Brinkley Report. In 1935 Saul Haas's Queen City Broadcasting Company took over the station. He changed the call letters to KIRO and increased its power to 500 Watts. Haas, who was well connected in liberal politics and the business community, wanted a simple, pronounceable, and recognizable word for his new station. KING, after King County, Washington, was not available at that time.
In 1937, KIRO was assigned the 710 frequency and increased its power to 1,000 Watts. Soon after, the Seattle CBS affiliation moved to KIRO from KOL. Known as "The Friendly Station," KIRO personalities broke from the formal announcing style that was commonplace during the early days of radio.
On June 29, 1941, KIRO's new, 50,000-Watt transmitter on Maury Island became operational. From the 1930s through the 1950s, KIRO recorded countless hours of CBS programming for time-delayed rebroadcast. These electrical transcriptions are, in many cases, the only recordings made of World War II-era news coverage over the CBS network. The discs were donated to the University of Washington in the early 1960s and are now held at the National Archives as the Milo Ryan Phonoarchive Collection.
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