KSCO
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| City | Santa Cruz, California |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz |
| Branding | AM 1080 KSCO |
| Slogan | "Talk Back Radio for the Central Coast" |
| Frequency | 1080 kHz |
| First air date | September 21, 1947 |
| Format | Talk |
| Power | 10,000 watts day 5,000 watts night |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 41594 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 36°57′43″N 121°58′51″W / 36.96194°N 121.98083°W |
| Callsign meaning | K Santa Cruz's Own |
| Former callsigns | KLRS (1988-?) |
| Affiliations | Premiere Radio Networks |
| Owner | Zwerling Broadcasting System, Ltd |
| Sister stations | KOMY |
| Webcast | Listen live |
| Website | www.ksco.com |
KSCO (1080 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a news/talk format located in Santa Cruz, California. It can be heard over much of Central California during the day. Since 1991, it has been owned by the Zwerling family. Both son Michael and late mother Kay Zwerling take an active role in the station with the former regularly hosting the call-in show Saturday Special and the latter writing and voicing politically conservative commentaries on a variety of topics, especially politics and current events.
KSCO began life in 1947 in a distinctive art deco building, which was built for the station, and still broadcasts there today. The founder was Vernon Berlin. Years later he began KSCO-FM (99.1 FM), which had a beautiful music format.
In 1986, Vernon Berlin sold both KSCO-FM and AM to Fuller-Jeffrey Broadcasting which owned numerous stations around the country. The AM station went to an automated satellite format of adult standards and on March 10, 1987, KSCO-FM changed call letters and its format to KLRS (Colors) with a first in the world new-age music format. The Zwerlings acquired the AM station in 1991, and later acquired another local AM station, KOMY.
On September 25, 2006, KSCO and KOMY received an envelope containing white powder. The envelope, which had no return address and contained no letter, was addressed to "AUNTIE KSCO" in handwriting described by Program Director Rosemary Chalmers as "chicken-scratch." Emergency response teams arrived on scene, and all KSCO personnel in the building were evacuated by a HazMat crew. By the evening of Tuesday, September 26, an FBI lab had determined that the powder was inert, and KSCO/KOMY's broadcast studios were deemed safe. Regular broadcasting resumed at 8:00 PST that evening. None of the four people who came in contact with the envelope have experienced symptoms of any illness.
The station programming is a mix of local, syndicated and brokered programming (meaning a person can purchase an available hour of time and produce their own show). A host can either pay for the hour out of his or her own pocket or find local businesses to sponsor the show in exchange for advertising.
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