Tehachapi News

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Corey Costelloe, the long-time voice on KERN 1410 and KGEO 1230, has taken on a new venture in local radio broadcasting.

A prominent voice in the valley, coupled with his passion in sports, Costelloe was the natural choice to be given the task of bringing an ESPN flare to the South-Kern County area.

“When we had KGEO it was a half-talk show / half-sports program line-up and it didn’t have the direction of having all of one or the other,” said Costelloe. “It was a little bit of everything, usually what we could fill into the time slots available, but now we have some stability with a lot of great voices and shows for our listeners.”

Serving as a newly promoted program director for ESPN 1230, Costelloe, a 1998 Tehachapi High graduate, was handed the baton to try and inspire change.

KGEO 1230 (in name) has been scrapped for the new ESPN moniker, with a new line-up of sports shows and live-broadcasts on the docket. With Costelloe’s expertise spearheading the effort, the transition was a smooth one for his American General Media company.

“When I officially took over the KGEO 1230 in my position, that’s when I pitched the ESPN 1230 idea and it stuck,” added Costelloe. “We carried a lot of ABC-ESPN programming on the weekend and a lot of their live sports like Sunday Night Baseball, so we had a relationship with ESPN as a part-time affiliate.”

It did not take much for Costelloe to seal the deal to make the relationship complete with ESPN, adding two dynamic shows like “Mike-and-Mike in the Morning” and “The Pulse” for local listeners.

With Costelloe on board, the only piece remaining to make the station complete was having his voice was heard on a local stage along with regional and national coverage. That has come to fruition on the network from 3-5 p.m. on the weekdays, called “Home Turf with Corey Costelloe”.

“My priority on the show will be talking local first, then regional and national,” Costelloe said. “We’ll find a way to bring the national news home and bring in the Kern County listeners opinion on what is going on, bringing in local professional sports, CSUB and Bakersfield College, and of course high school action.”

Overall, reactions have carried a sentiment of “finally” for local sports enthusiasts, with ESPN officially joining Kern County in partnership.

“It was time for direction and it came on me when I became program director to take things to a higher level,” said Costelloe. “The fact that we already carried Condors hockey and Bakersfield Jam (D-League Professional Basketball) made it attractive for us to carry the ESPN banner, and they were very accommodating to us and our local needs.”

As for Costelloe’s career, there could not be a more perfect job situation.

“Most people have to change markets three to five times just to get a position like this,” said Costelloe. “I have a situation where I’ve been with the same station for five years and I didn’t have to change or go somewhere else. I get to do play-by-play sports and now we have ESPN and a local talk show. I’m pretty happy with where I’m at right now, and hopefully the listeners tune in and like what they hear.”