all move to competitor KKSF. The format change and termination of many popular talk show hosts sparked outrage among long-time listeners, many of whom called for sponsors to drop their advertising on the station. Ratings declined substantially following the change, with competitors KCBS and KQED-FM continuing to lead the market, and in December 2014, KGO reintroduced talk programming on weekdays. In December 2014, KGO added Chip Franklin to the noon to 3 pm lineup. In January 2015, KGO announced they had hired Chicago/San Antonio radio personality Kevin "DreX" Buchar, best known for his successful morning show on Chicago's WKSC-FM, which ran for more than a decade, from 7PM to 10PM. John Batchelor's syndicated show aired overnights, returning KGO to the same level of news programming as before 2011. Both KGO and Dallas-based sister station KLIF shared similar visual "News/Information" identities after KLIF's parent Cumulus acquired Citadel until 2014, when talk programming was reintroduced. On March 31, 2016, at Noon, KGO dropped its previous programming and began stunting with recordings of speeches from influential figures and people talking about San Francisco, as well as songs about the city, while promoting "The Next Generation of KGO" to launch on April 5 (though with a break during the weekend for paid programming). At least 20 people, including the entire news staff, as well as some staffers from sister station KFOG, were laid off with the change. Originally, long-time KGO host Ronn Owens announced that he would be moving to sister station KSFO in the afternoon slot beginning April 4. However, due to what was advertised as a 'listener reaction' against the move (in reality, Owens contested the move of his show off KGO as against the terms of his contract), Owens stayed with KGO. KGO kept its news/talk format, but relaunched it with a new live and local lineup, which included Owens and Armstrong & Getty in mornings; Armstrong & Getty, a regionally syndicated program based at KSTE in Sacramento, had previously aired in the Bay Area on KKSF. Owens left the station in 2018, and Armstrong & Getty moved to KSFO in 2020 to be replaced by Nikki Medoro, previously an afternoon news anchor. 2020s: end of news and talk; "The Spread" On October 6, 2022, at approximately 10:16 a.m., KGO abruptly ended the news/talk format in the middle of midday host Mark Thompson's show; Thompson later said he had been informed