The "Breakfast Gang" on KFRC
"The
Breakfast Gang" was a staple of KFRC's morning schedule for many years.
This undated promotional photograph sheet (left), issued by the station (which
was the key station of the Don Lee Broadcasting System, operated by the
San Francisco automobile dealer Don Lee, who also owned KFRC from 1926
until 1951), probably dates from the mid-1940s.
Mel Venter (top center photograph) was among the most popular figures in Bay Area broadcasting, serving variously as a program host, sportscaster, newsman and — in the early days of local television — a game show host on KTVU (Channel 2). Orchestra leader Lyle Bardo (top right photograph) also had a varied career as a musician on Bay Area radio; he is perhaps best known as the first band leader to place a radio microphone in front of a San Mateo-born boy singer named Merv Griffin, on the nationally-broadcast program "San Francisco Sketchbook" in 1945, which also originated at KFRC.
SOURCES: Bay Area Radio Museum Collection (left); Jack Bethards (right).
Mel Venter (top center photograph) was among the most popular figures in Bay Area broadcasting, serving variously as a program host, sportscaster, newsman and — in the early days of local television — a game show host on KTVU (Channel 2). Orchestra leader Lyle Bardo (top right photograph) also had a varied career as a musician on Bay Area radio; he is perhaps best known as the first band leader to place a radio microphone in front of a San Mateo-born boy singer named Merv Griffin, on the nationally-broadcast program "San Francisco Sketchbook" in 1945, which also originated at KFRC.
SOURCES: Bay Area Radio Museum Collection (left); Jack Bethards (right).