KCBS Heads To San Jose For A Day

This Thursday (June 11), All News KCBS returns to its ancestral roots for one afternoon as it sends morning co-anchor Stan Bunger (photo, right) and midday co-anchor Rebecca Corral to the approximate spot that the station originally broadcast from a century ago.

Bunger and Corral will anchor the KCBS (740 AM and 106.9 FM) noon newscast from Fairmont Plaza in San Jose, once the site of the Garden City Bank Building, where Prof. Charles D. Herrold developed the world's first broadcasting station in the late 1900s.

When the government began licensing stations for commercial broadcasting in 1921, Herrold's pioneering station became KQW. A migration to San Francisco began in 1942 with the opening of studios at the Palace Hotel, along with becoming CBS' key affiliate in the Bay Area.

In April 1949, the station was purchased by CBS, at which time it adopted the KCBS call letters. The station's transmitter remained in the Southbay, near Alviso, until moving to Novato in August 1951.

(For more on the history of KQW and Doc Herrold, check out the Bay Area Radio Museum's website.)

Thursday's live broadcast is open to the public, and will include giveaways of snappy KCBS centennial T-shirts (got one; love it) and passes to view an exhibit of Doc Herrold memorabilia at the nearby Tech Museum of Innovation.

It's 7:40 AM. Do You Know Where Your News Is?

Rather anticlimactic, the crossover this morning to the KCBS simulcast on AM 'n' FM...

Journey ("Don't Stop Believing," rather than "Lights," which I thought would be more of a nod to the old KFRC), some stunt-ish stuff (news timeline audio clips, reminding me of the stunting used before 106.9 became Free FM), then Stan Bunger spake "Well, welcome to FM 106-9, and let's get back to doing what we do here at KCBS."

A time check (7:41), over to Susan Leigh-Taylor and, just like that, we now have a KCBS news simulcast at 740 AM and 106.9 FM.

The top of hour ID?

"What's happening, and why. KCBS AM and HD, KFRC-FM and HD-1, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose."