In the 1960s and 70s, KDON was a Drake-formatted Top 40 station, playing the hits for young listeners. But by the 1980s, most listening to contemporary music was shifting to the FM band. KDON, moved to an adult contemporary format.
The station was assigned the call letters KHTX on December 28, 1991. On January 10, 1992, the station changed its call sign to KRQC. In January 1995, the station reverted to KHTX. On May 1, 1997, the station returned to the call sign KDON, and on October 12, 1998, KTXX. In August 2002, the call letters became the current KION.
However, on October 19, 2004, the station switched to an adult standards sound, using the call letters KABL, originally used on 960 KABL San Francisco (now KNEW). On December 31, 2006, the station dropped the Adult Standards music, reverting to a News/Talk format and changing its call sign back to KION.
In 2011, KION added an FM translator at 101.1 MHz. In 2016, the translator was relicensed to transmit the HD2digital subchannel of KOCN Pacific Grove at 105.1 MHz. The HD2 signal usually simulcasts KION's AM signal, but it separates programming at various times to originate play-by-play sports when the AM station is airing a brokered program or a different live sports event.[8]
