In 1953, KOMO-TV first signed on the air on Channel 4 as an affiliate of the NBC television network. Channel 4 swapped affiliations with KING-TV in 1958 and joined the ABC television network. KOMO radio followed suit with by switching to the ABC radio network the next year. Through the 1940s and 50s, KOMO carried network dramas, comedies, game shows, soap operas and big band broadcasts, during the Golden Age of Radio. By 1964, old-line network programming had been phased out and KOMO carried a MOR music format. Long-time morning drive personality Larry Nelson began in 1967. By 1971, KOMO was more of an Adult Contemporary music format. From 1967 to 1978, KOMO was the original flagship station of the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association with Bob Blackburn on play-by-play. Norm Gregory, formerly of KJR and KZOK-FM, joined the staff as afternoon disk jockey in 1984. KOMO carried a full-service schedule of music, personality, news, talk and Washington Huskies sports well into the early '90s. Still the station played more music than most full service AM radio stations throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Until 1993, the station was playing music in all dayparts though news was aired locally every hour. In the fall of 1993, evening talk programming was added. Dayparts gradually changed from music to talk and by the spring of 1996, the conversion to news-talk was complete.