Early years KHTK first
signed on the air on November 12,
1926. It was randomly assigned the
call sign KGDM from an alphabetic list of available call letters. The station was originally owned by Hercules Broadcasting, licensed to
Stockton, California, and operating at 1130 kHz with 1,000 watts of power. Initially it was a
daytimer, required to go off the air from sunset to sunrise. Following the establishment of the
Federal Radio Commission (FRC), stations were initially issued a series of temporary authorizations starting on May 3, 1927. In addition, they were informed that if they wanted to continue operating, they needed to file a formal license application by January 15, 1928, as the first step in determining whether they met the new "public interest, convenience, or necessity" standard. On May 25, 1928, the FRC issued
General Order 32, which notified 164 stations, including KGDM, that "From an examination of your application for future license it does not find that public interest, convenience, or necessity would be served by granting it." However, the station successfully convinced the commission that it should remain licensed. On November 11, 1928, the FRC implemented a major reallocation of station transmitting frequencies, as part of a reorganization resulting from its implementation of
General Order 40. KGDM was assigned to 1150 kHz, and restricted to only daytime operation. The 1941
North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement required the station to move its frequency. KGDM switched to 1140 kHz with 5,000 watts, now authorized to broadcast full-time. In 1957, the station changed call signs to KRAK, increased power to 50,000 watts and flipped to a
Top 40 format. The station unsuccessfully competed with
KSTN in Stockton, which at that time only ran 1,000 watts. KSTN would continue with Top 40 (later called
contemporary hit radio) until 1999 though by the late 1980s had a rhythmic/urban slant to the format.
Country KRAK KRAK flipped to a
country music format in 1962. The station had changed its city of license to Sacramento and moved to new facilities. Some of the early personalities included "Oakie Paul" Westmoreland, Walt Shaw, and Dick Bains. With country music moving more into mainstream popularity during the 1970s, KRAK became one of the Sacramento area's most popular stations. Listeners were not only exposed to artists such as
Johnny Cash,
Dolly Parton,
Waylon Jennings, and
Willie Nelson, but enjoyed two decades of on-air personality stability. Joey Mitchell hosted the morning show, and was named "Sacramento Radio Personality of the Year" several times. Rick Stewart hosted middays, Big Jim Hall hosted afternoon drive, Hal Murray hosted nights, and Fred Hoffman hosted "Captain Fred's All-Night Truckin' Show. All had Top 40 backgrounds which led to a tighter, more upbeat format. KRAK continued to broadcast into the 1990s, long after other music stations had switched to the
FM band. KRAK-FM would eventually move ahead in the ratings, later becoming
KNCI through changes after a purchase by
CBS Radio and frequency switching.
Talk and sports On February 28, 1994, KRAK became KHTK, a
hot talk station, as "Hot Talk 1140". After a couple of years in the talk format, it flipped to its current all-sports format. The call letters "KRAK" would make a brief return in the Sacramento
media market as a classic country station at
AM 1470 before that station was sold to
Radio Disney and is today
KIID, airing programming in
Punjabi. Most recently, the KRAK call letters were assigned to a CBS-owned station in
Victor Valley, California, which would later become
KMPS. KHTK was originally branded as "Sports 1140" before adopting "The Fan" branding in November 2011. On January 1, 2013, KHTK began to identify itself as "CBS Sports 1140". On July 1, 2013, six months after identifying as "CBS Sports 1140", KHTK switched its branding back to "KHTK Sports 1140", then to "Sports 1140 KHTK". One of KHTK's initial sports hosts was
Pro Football Hall of Famer
Jack Youngblood, who co-hosted with Mike Remy, the station's former program director.
Ownership changes On July 31, 2008, the
CBS Corporation announced that KHTK and its five sister stations in Sacramento were being put up for sale as part of the planned divestiture of radio stations outside the top-15 U.S. radio markets. KHTK would remain part of the CBS Radio family for nearly a decade. On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with
Entercom which locally owned
KKDO,
KUDL,
KSEG,
KRXQ, and
KIFM. The company formerly owned
KDND until it shut the station down and turned in its license to the
Federal Communications Commission two days later. On October 10, CBS Radio announced that as part of the process of obtaining regulatory approval of the merger, KHTK would be one of sixteen stations that would be divested by Entercom, along with sister stations
KYMX,
KZZO, and
KNCI;
KSFM would be retained by Entercom. On November 1, Entercom announced that
Bonneville International would begin operating KHTK, KYMX, KZZO and KNCI via a
local marketing agreement (LMA) when the merger of CBS and Entercom closed on November 17, while their licenses were placed into a divestiture trust pending a sale to a different owner within 180 days. On August 3, 2018, Bonneville announced it would buy the stations outright in a $141 million deal. The sale was completed on September 21, 2018.
Controversy Former KHTK afternoon host and Kings play-by-play announcer
Grant Napear was a staple of the station's programming from 1997 until 2020. In June 2020, Bonneville fired Napear for insensitive remarks towards former Kings player
DeMarcus Cousins in a series of Twitter feeds regarding the
Black Lives Matter movement.
Sactown Sports On June 20, 2022, KHTK rebranded as "Sactown Sports 1140". The station acquired local broadcast rights to the
San Francisco 49ers in March 2023, replacing former affiliate
KIFM. KHTK served as the Sacramento affiliate of
Oakland Athletics baseball via the
Oakland Athletics Radio Network from 2013 through 2024. Following the temporary move of the
Athletics (A's) to
West Sacramento as part of their
relocation to Las Vegas, on February 14, 2025, the team announced that
KSTE would replace KHTK as the team's Sacramento radio outlet. ==References==