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KIRO was founded by Moritz Thomsen of the Pacific Biscuit Company and began broadcasting on April 27, 1927 as the 100-watt station KPCB 650. In 1935, Queen City Broadcasting Company headed by Norman K. Lear and Saul Haas took over the station, changing the call letters to KIRO and increasing the power to 500 watts. In 1937, KIRO was assigned the new frequency 710 kilocycles and increased its power to 1,000 watts. About the same time, KIRO became the official Seattle affiliate for CBS.

Over the years, the Seattle KIRO broadcast station moved several times. The first location was at Fourth and University, followed by the Olympic Hotel, the Cobb Building (circa 1940) and the Federal Insurance Building on Queen Anne Avenue. In the 1950s, the station moved to 1530 Queen Avenue North, and then to Third and Broad Streets (circa 1975). The KIRO station is currently located near the Seattle Center, with a transmitting tower adjacent to the station’s original studios on Queen Anne Hill.

KIRO became known as the “friendly station” when its radio personalities broke from the formal style that was common in the early days of radio announcing. Famous KIRO news announcers included Chet Huntley, hired in 1934, and Edward R. Murrow, who came to prominence with a series of radio broadcasts during World War II. KIRO was known for its wide variety of live, local entertainment, but the station also recorded hours of CBS programming for time-delayed broadcast, including transcriptions of World War II era news coverage over the CBS network.

The new KIRO transmitting station on Vashon-Maury Island became operational on June 29, 1941, becoming the first 50,000 WATT station granted by the FCC in the Pacific Northwest. Two 526-foot towers, using state-of-the art directional technology, increased the KIRO audience from 540,000 to 1,355,000 in the most densely populated parts of the Northwest. The new area served was 400 percent larger, and a strong night signal reached as far north as Alaska. During the 1940s, KIRO was one of the most powerful radio stations in the United States.

In April 1963, the communications division of the Salt Lake City-based Church of Latter-Day Saints began purchasing stock in Queen City Broadcasting, eventually getting majority control of the station. By the 1970s, KIRO was known for its “middle of the road” music, and ratings were poor. Using the model of KCBS, a CBS affiliate station in San Francisco, KIRO reinvented itself as a news talk station and began broadcasting three hours of news each morning, putting the first Seattle traffic helicopter in the air. KIRO is currently owned by Atlanta-based Cox Media Group and affiliated with the ESPN Radio Network. KIRO is the official broadcast station for Seattle Seahawk football and Mariner baseball.