KBGG


KBGG is a commercial AM radio station in Des Moines, Iowa. The station is owned by Cumulus Media and it airs a sports talk radio format, known as "1700 The Champ".
Its studios and offices are located in Urbandale. The transmitter is located off Fairview Lane in Pleasant Hill. KBGG is in the "Expanded Band," one of only a handful of stations at AM 1700. It is powered at 10,000 watts by day and 1,000 watts at night, using a non-directional antenna.

Programming and Personalities

Several sports talk shows are heard on 1700 The Champ KBGG weekdays: Taz & The Moose, The D.A. Show, Jim Rome, The Drive with Wolfgang and Steen, Tiki & Tierney, Bill Reiter and Amy Lawrence.
KBGG serves as the Des Moines affiliate for the Kansas City Chiefs and the University of Northern Iowa men's basketball and football. KBGG also carries the NFL on Westwood One Sports.
Other local and regional programming includes:
NCAA & Pro Sports Live Play x Play courtesy of Westwood One, Compass Media Networks & Learfield
Chiefs Kingdom Show: 6:00PM Tuesdays
NFL Prime Time Live Play x Play
Chiefs Radio Network
UNI Panthers Football & Basketball Play x Play
UNI Coach’s Show: Panther Sports Talk
ISU Coach’s Pregame Show with Paul Clark
The Hawkeye Huddle during Iowa Hawkeye Football and Basketball season

History

The station signed on in 1947 as KCBC. The station was owned by Capital City Broadcasting Company and was a network affiliate of the Mutual Broadcasting System. KCBC broadcast on 1390 kilocycles with a 1000 watt directional antenna day and night.
In 1949, an FM station was launched on 94.1 MHz, as KCBC-FM. That station went off the air in 1953, and the license was deleted by the Federal Communications Commission.
In 1983, 1390 KCBC became KMRY, mostly simulcasting the country music of co-owned 92.5 KJJY. The next year, it became KKSO.
In 1998, the station moved to a different dial location, on the expanded AM dial at 1700 AM, giving it more daytime power and a non-directional signal. The 1390 AM frequency and KKSO call letters were deleted. The new call sign was KBGG, shared with its FM sister station. The WSJZ call sign was briefly parked on the frequency from June 6 to June 18, 2002, then reverted to KBGG.
In the 2000s, it broadcast a Spanish language Regional Mexican music format and was known as "La Indomable AM."
On February 25, 2008, the station relaunched as "1700 The Champ".
After having been an ESPN Radio affiliate for nearly five years, KBGG became an affiliate of CBS Sports Radio on January 2, 2013, as part of a Cumulus Media-wide switch. Cumulus, which owns KBGG, has a financial stake in CBS Radio Sports.
In October 2015, the station became a talk/sports hybrid and branded itself 1700 KBGG The Big Talker. Weekday mornings began with Good Day With Doug Stephan, featuring news director Dianna Kelly with local information, followed by The Dave Ramsey Show and Red Eye Radio heard overnight.
In 2017, Marty Tirrell of the "Marty and Miller" show stopped making payments to Cumulus Media and the show ended on 1700. Also in August 2017, "The Ken Miller Show" started the sports day from 12-2, followed by CBS Sports from 2-4. "Jimmy B and TC" which originally was on from 12-2 moved from 4-6.
On October 15, 2018 the station returned to full time sports talk.