San Francisco Bay Area Radio
History: 1930s
by Alex Cosper
Introduction
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
see also American Radio
History
KSFO had been the CBS affiliate in the thirties. The
station originally grew from a show called "The Hour of Prayer" hosted by
Reverend George W. Phillips on KGO beginning in 1924. After the show was dropped
from the schedule, Phillips was able to persuade the Tenth Avenue Baptist Church
in Oakland to start their own station that would carry the show. The station
debuted as KTAB in 1925. It sold to Associated Broadcasters, Inc, a few years
later. In 1928 it joined a network run by Pickwick, a hotel chain and bus line
service. Like so many other American businesses, the company folded with the
stock market crash of 1929. Banker Wesley Dumm, who was a director of Associated
Broadcasters Inc., bought the company in 1933.
Like many stations of the period,
KTAB jumped around the dial a few times but landed at 560 AM in the
mid-thirties. The call letters were officially changed to KSFO in 1935, the same
year the station hired Phil Lasky to run the station.
A new network was
born in 1935 when KSFO and Los Angeles independent station KNX created the
Western Network. But the network fell apart after CBS bought KNX in 1937 and
KSFO became a CBS affiliate, replacing KFRC, that same year.
Introduction
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
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