San Francisco Radio in 2022

[davideduardo]

Sacramento International Airport is a perennial award winner for customer satisfaction, with 40 gates and 2.7 million passenger boardings per year---ranking ninth among medium-size hubs in the United States, and behind only Los Angeles International, San Francisco International and San Diego International among airports in California.

Of course, the attractions of cities or metro areas in CA seem to fall according to population. After Sacramento, we get Riverside/San Berdoo, Fresno, Bakersfield, Modesto. The only attractive ones are Monterey, Santa Rosa and Palm Springs, but those are checkmated by Stockton, Lancaster/Palmdale and Victorville. And then there is Calexico.

 

[michael hagerty]

Of course, the attractions of cities or metro areas in CA seem to fall according to population. After Sacramento, we get Riverside/San Berdoo, Fresno, Bakersfield, Modesto. The only attractive ones are Monterey, Santa Rosa and Palm Springs, but those are checkmated by Stockton, Lancaster/Palmdale and Victorville. And then there is Calexico.

Yeah, but if you had asked me, David, I would have bet Oakland and San Jose would have had higher passenger volume than Sacramento. And maybe even Orange County, Burbank and Ontario.

 

[michael hagerty]

The only attractive ones are Monterey, Santa Rosa and Palm Springs,

You left out Santa Barbara. And for that matter, San Luis Obispo.

 

[davideduardo]

Yeah, but if you had asked me, David, I would have bet Oakland and San Jose would have had higher passenger volume than Sacramento.

And those are SF area airports, just like Newark and La Guardia are NYC airports.

Many large metros like Dallas, Miami and Chicago have at least a second significant airport with scheduled passenger flights.

And maybe even Orange County, Burbank and Ontario.

Of course, all those are LA Metro airports.

 

[davideduardo]

You left out Santa Barbara. And for that matter, San Luis Obispo.

Funny that nearly all the good ones are on the coast.

 

[TomásEstefan]

And “Frisco” should never be used.

Anyone who uses the term "Frisco" has obviously never lived in the Bay Area, as the term is considered insulting and demeaning. If you don't want to say "San Francisco" the short version is: "The City". If you say, for example, "Tomorrow I'm driving to the "the city" everyone will automatically know what city you're talking about.

 

[landtuna]

The infrastructure is there now. EDH is one of the most desirable communities in the area, as is Folsom.

It was back then too but neither me or wifey wanted to live in an Intel "ghetto". CP had a nice lake in the middle of it and our house was just a block away. Nice for the kids.

Roseville is actually the second-largest of the Sacramento suburbs now at 150,000+ (Elk Grove is the biggest at 175,000). The metro has grown well beyond Roseville, with Rocklin now at 72,000 people, and not much undeveloped between there and Auburn. The terrain east of Auburn will prevent significant spread beyond there.

My sister once lived in Auburn. Wide spot in the road back then.

I have no idea how anywhere in the Bay Area was half a day's drive, even from Cameron Park. Barring a crash tying up traffic, driving at the speed limit, I can be in downtown SF in just a shade under two hours from my house in Folsom, Point Reyes National Seashore in 2 hours 15, SFO in about 2 hours 20, Half Moon Bay in 2 and a half, and Menlo Park in 2 hours 45.

Undoubtedly the freeways are better then they were back then but it used to take between 30-45 minutes for me to drive the 20-odd miles from San Rafael to the south end of the GG bridge let alone from FM. I think the fastest trip I made was CP to Berserkly at 2.5 hours and that was hauling the mail!

Come to think of it, I've never had it take more than six and a half hours to drive from Folsom to L.A.

That's about the same time from Marin to El A back in the day (on I-5).

Sacramento International has grown to the point that there's no need to use Oakland. And unless you need nonstop across the Pacific or Atlantic, there's really no need to go to SFO, either.

I'm sure it has changed a lot. I used to fly my boys from CP to Texas and there were no non-stops from SAC to anywhere except SFO or Modesto (yes, that's a joke). When it was necessary I took the company shuttle between SAC and SJC (San Jose) which was almost as tiny as SAC. The joke was the shuttle broke down virtually every other trip but the company would spring for dinner so we enjoyed many a pint in the SJ executive terminal lounge. I am continually surprised I never landed in a rice field along the route.

As for KYA---even if the signal could have reached Cameron Park in the late 80s, it would have just been a simulcast of Adult Contemporary KOIT.

On one of my 90's biz trips to SF (don't remember exactly when) I jumped in my rental car, flipped on the radio to 93.3 (I think) and found KYA had flipped and was now Country. ARRGGGHHH!!!!! We had cable in CP and KYA was listed but it was never on when I tried listening. We moved back to Phoenix in '89.

 

[michael hagerty]

Anyone who uses the term "Frisco" has obviously never lived in the Bay Area, as the term is considered insulting and demeaning.

There's a long history behind that, amplified in the 50s by Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who named a book of his collected writings "Don't Call It Frisco". But he changed.

Here's a pull quote from the article linked to below, from Caen's alma mater:

"But t while still in the first half of his career, Caen started walking his position back. In a 1965 column he wrote: “Adolescence is believing that ‘Frisco’ is a racy nickname for a city; senility is automatically saying ‘Don’t call it Frisco’; maturity is figuring it doesn’t matter all that much.”

During Caen’s final columns in the 1990s, when readers were still sending Frisco items, he fully defended use of the word. One of Caen’s last Frisco mentions before his 1997 death was written Sept. 6, 1995: “The toughest guys on the old S.F. waterfront, neither rubes nor tourists, used to call it Frisco, and no effete journalist would have tried to correct them, either.”


https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/frisco-san-francisco-17411378.php#:~:text=One%20of%20Caen's%20last%20Frisco,to%20correct%20them%2C%20either.%E2%80%9D

 

[landtuna]

Anyone who uses the term "Frisco" has obviously never lived in the Bay Area, as the term is considered insulting and demeaning. If you don't want to say "San Francisco" the short version is: "The City". If you say, for example, "Tomorrow I'm driving to the "the city" everyone will automatically know what city you're talking about.

"the city" could mean anywhere. "The City" always means, to a CA person, San Francisco.

One of the first things I learned after moving to SF.

 

[landtuna]

There's a long history behind that, amplified in the 50s by Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who named a book of his collected writings "Don't Call It Frisco". But he changed.

Here's a pull quote from the article linked to below, from Caen's alma mater:

"But t while still in the first half of his career, Caen started walking his position back. In a 1965 column he wrote: “Adolescence is believing that ‘Frisco’ is a racy nickname for a city; senility is automatically saying ‘Don’t call it Frisco’; maturity is figuring it doesn’t matter all that much.”

During Caen’s final columns in the 1990s, when readers were still sending Frisco items, he fully defended use of the word. One of Caen’s last Frisco mentions before his 1997 death was written Sept. 6, 1995: “The toughest guys on the old S.F. waterfront, neither rubes nor tourists, used to call it Frisco, and no effete journalist would have tried to correct them, either.”


https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/frisco-san-francisco-17411378.php#:~:text=One%20of%20Caen's%20last%20Frisco,to%20correct%20them%2C%20either.%E2%80%9D

Herb Caen was possibly the best city-type columnist I've ever read. And I was a teenager in high school at that time. My mom used to clip his columns and mail them to me in Vietnam. They got passed around the ship and even the guys who knew nothing about SF thought some of his insights were really great. Here's one I remember:

Coit Tower was actually built by the restaurants along Fisherman's Wharf so they had somewhere to store their gravy.

 

[michael hagerty]

Herb Caen was possibly the best city-type columnist I've ever read. And I was a teenager in high school at that time. My mom used to clip his columns and mail them to me in Vietnam. They got passed around the ship and even the guys who knew nothing about SF thought some of his insights were really great. Here's one I remember:

Coit Tower was actually built by the restaurants along Fisherman's Wharf so they had somewhere to store their gravy.

Caen was a great read---a modern-day Mark Twain---capable of great insights and no small amount of BS.

 

[TomásEstefan]

"the city" could mean anywhere. "The City" always means, to a CA person, San Francisco.

One of the first things I learned after moving to SF.

Maybe I wasn't clear, when I said "everyone" I meant those in the Greater Bay Area and somewhat beyond. When I lived in Ukiah, "the City" ALWAYS meant San Francisco!

 

[michael hagerty]

Maybe I wasn't clear, when I said "everyone" I meant those in the Greater Bay Area and somewhat beyond. When I lived in Ukiah, "the City" ALWAYS meant San Francisco!

There was media reinforcement to "The City" from SF radio back in the day that I don't hear anymore.

KFRC would always end its weather with "....and in The City (whatever) degrees."

And, for about a year and a half, they had this jingle package:

 

[TomásEstefan]

There was media reinforcement to "The City" from SF radio back in the day that I don't hear anymore.

KFRC would always end its weather with "....and in The City (whatever) degrees."

And, for about a year and a half, they had this jingle package:

Great jingle package!...Anyhow one of my Aunties, may she RIP, who lived in SF for the better part of 4 decades, from the 30s through the 70s, would go absolutely ballistic when she would hear "Frisco". With a glare on her face she would say excuse me it's S-A-N F-R'-A-N-C-I-S-C-O. (The fact that she lived in the Knob Hill district probably reinforced certain things.)

 

[landtuna]

Maybe I wasn't clear, when I said "everyone" I meant those in the Greater Bay Area and somewhat beyond. When I lived in Ukiah, "the City" ALWAYS meant San Francisco!

Yes indeedy!

 

[landtuna]

Great jingle package!...Anyhow one of my Aunties, may she RIP, who lived in SF for the better part of 4 decades, from the 30s through the 70s, would go absolutely ballistic when she would hear "Frisco". With a glare on her face she would say excuse me it's S-A-N F-R'-A-N-C-I-S-C-O. (The fact that she lived in the Knob Hill district probably reinforced certain things.)

I was always surprised no station ever picked KNOB for their calls. But then perhaps it meant more than Knob Hill.

 

[michael hagerty]

I was always surprised no station ever picked KNOB for their calls. But then perhaps it meant more than Knob Hill.

Well, it’s “Nob Hill”, not “Knob Hill”…but K-NOB would have still worked.

But, the call letters were already in use, from 1949 to 1988, on 97.9 FM in Long Beach.

 

[landtuna]

Well, it’s “Nob Hill”, not “Knob Hill”…but K-NOB would have still worked.

But, the call letters were already in use, from 1949 to 1988, on 97.9 FM in Long Beach.

All my geographic references will now begin with "K". Got "K" on the brain!

I lived in Long Beach for 18 months in the early 60's but don't remember this one. Wonder if it had a logical connection to that city?

 

[michael hagerty]

All my geographic references will now begin with "K". Got "K" on the brain!

I lived in Long Beach for 18 months in the early 60's but don't remember this one. Wonder if it had a logical connection to that city?

It was jazz from 1953-54 until 1966, beautiful music after.

Recalling The Jazz KNOB (Feb. 18, 2007)

The story of jazz in the Los Angeles radio market generally centers on the beleaguered KKJZ (88.1), formerly KLON, which has been L.A.’s jazz stalwart out of California State University since 1981.…

longbeachhistory.wordpress.com

 

[TomásEstefan]

Well, it’s “Nob Hill”, not “Knob Hill”…but K-NOB would have still worked.

But, the call letters were already in use, from 1949 to 1988, on 97.9 FM in Long Beach.

What would anybody expect, I've got radio on the brain, of course it's Nob Hill !