Legendary San Francisco Radio Stations Fade Into The Fog but the Music of the Cable Cars Rings On
This is the end of life story of the legendary KABL 960 Radio in San Francisco, which took on a new life online long after it went off the airwaves, plus a recording of the San Francisco Cable Car Bell Ringing Contest it sponsored, including a virtuoso performance of of San Francisco by all time champ Carl Payne.
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Two legendary San Francisco radio stations faded off into the fog this week. Both 960 KABL and 1260 KYA had existed as ghosts of their former selves for quite some time, streaming online, with international audiences. By the time you read this they may be already gone: https://kablradio.com/ and https://kyaradio.com/
The were brought back to life by David Jackson of the Bay Area Radio Museum and Hall of Fame, who ran the stations until now. But it was just too much work for a volunteer (I know, as I ran a streaming radio station for about seven years).
960 KABL evolved from a schmaltzy beautiful music format to an amalgam of non-rock pop music of the past sixty years, everything from The Living Strings to Aretha Franklin. Now it is broadcasting Bloomberg Radio.
I know a bit about it, as I was one of the voices of KABL-Radio, part time, for about 15 years.
Russell Johnson is a writer, filmmaker and former broadcaster living in Sonoma, California. He is author of the book and audio book Tales of the Radio Traveler and does a weekly humor podcast, Gone Astray – Russell Johnson available on iTunes, Spotify and most other podcast outlets.
