2014, in honor of the January 31 San Diego stop on George Strait's farewell tour, KSON temporarily re-branded as "George FM". The station added more George Strait music to its playlist, and held on-air giveaways of memorabilia and tickets to the San Diego show. On December 8, 2014, Entercom announced its acquisition of KSON's parent company Lincoln Financial Media. The transaction was approved on July 17, 2015. Top 40 (2017-2018) Three years later, Entercom merged with CBS Radio on November 17, 2017. KSON's simulcast partner KSOQ-FM was spun off to the Educational Media Foundation to comply with FCC ownership caps. The merger placed KSON in common ownership with Top 40/CHR-formatted KEGY, Energy 103-7 – which had a better signal in Northern San Diego County, home to most of KSON’s core audience. Immediately after the merger closed, the country format was moved to 103.7; for the next three days, 97.3 stunted with a message loop redirecting listeners to the new frequency. On November 20, the station assumed 103.7's CHR format and branding as Energy 97-3. In January 2018, KEGY moved out of its longtime Linda Vista studios and relocated to Stonecrest. Hot talk (2018) Following the move of Energy to 97.3, KEGY's ratings nosedived, from a 2.2 share to a 1.0 in the Nielsen Audio ratings. In February 2018, Entercom announced it had hired former Mighty 1090 morning host Dan Sileo; he was slated to host a new program on one of Entercom's San Diego stations, with Sileo saying on social media that he would be able to talk about "anything". On February 19, the San Diego Padres announced that the team's radio broadcasts would move from sister station KBZT to KEGY for the 2018 season, intensifying speculation that Entercom intended to flip 97.3 to a sports radio format. On March 1, 2018, at 2 p.m., KEGY began stunting with rock music and no imaging, although notably playing "Welcome to the Machine" by Pink Floyd at the top of each hour. Two days later, KEGY flipped to hot talk as 97.3 The Machine. Its daytime lineup on weekdays featured Dan Sileo at midday, and The Men's Room from KISW/Seattle in afternoon drive. Blocks of classic rock music interspersed with comedy bits were broadcast on nights and weekends. The station would carry coverage of San Diego Padres games, with hour-long pre- and post-game shows. A morning show, Kevin Klein Live (moving from