Exploring Early Sacramento Radio History
SacTV.com "Video of the Day" review by
Alex Cosper on March 3, 2012
In recent years radio history has become a fascinating topic with both radio
and history fans. This Center for Sacramento History video hosted by
James E. Henley, covers the early history in the 1920s when radio stations
began being commercially licensed by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The first
radio station in Sacramento was also one of the first in California, which was
the station that became KFBK AM. Read more about Sacramento Radio History as
well as American Radio History here.
Henley explains how Sacramento's first radio station was a partnership between a sporting goods
store called Kimball Upson, an electrical store called J.C. Hobrecht Co., Sacramento Bee owner
McClatchy and The Sacramento Union. Shortly after the operation launched in 1922 as KVG, McClatchy
took over and held the station through the 1980s. Henley says when union station KCRA donated archives to the
Center for Sacramento History it included thousands of non-union albums that the station didn't play.
He also touches on how radio helped popularize Tower Records in the 1960s. Tower went on to impact the
entire music industry as a leading music retail outlet in the country for decades through 2005, when it filed
for bankruptcy and made way for digital downloads, which surpassed CD sales in 2011.
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