San Francisco was a great radio city in the golden age of radio, rivaling New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in its importance as a radio programming center. Why, then, is there so little information available about those early years in the City by the Bay? The radio broadcasting history buff will find only scraps of information here and there.
This web site was created to help fill the gap. It consists of materials taken from a manuscript I wrote in the 1970's, after two years' of intensive research while I attended San Francisco State University in 1969-71. This material has never been published in book form.
It also includes a great number of historical radio photographs that I have collected over the years. Several new additions were added in 2009. Penny Wilkes, the daughter of Wesley Innis Dumm, provided a large collection of photos from the early years of KPIX-TV. A group of photos from KGEI was shared by is a collection of photographs from KJR, KOMO and KXA in Seattle, and KINY in Juneau, Alaska, that came from the private collections of Vincent Kraft, Homer Pope and John DuBuque.
All articles on this site are Copyrighted by John F. Schneider, 1999, All Rights Reserved. Photos are presumed to be in the public domain unless otherwise indicated. Special thanks to the following people who have graciously contributed information, articles or photographs to this site: Fred Krock, Bill Ruck, Cecil Lynch, Rich Kolm, Bill Newbrough, Greg Oppenheimer, Richard Rodriguez and Steve Gore.
Can you provide additional facts or photographs to help document Bay Area broadcasting?
Your comments about and contributions to this site are welcome.
I can be contacted at: jfs@adams.net or mail to:
John SchneiderJohn Schneider worked briefly in San Francisco radio in the early 70's. He is now the Latin America Broadcast Business Manager for iBiquity Digital Corporation - the creators of HD Radio.
1662 Jersey Street
Quincy, IL 62301
Articles - Histories of San Francisco Broadcasting.
The San Francisco Radio Photo Archive - Over
200 images of broadcasting in San Francisco.
All Articles © Copyright 1999 John F. Schneider. All rights reserved.
Please direct your comments and inquiries to jfs@adams.net