KFRC/Don Lee Network
The Breakfast Gang
Undated Promotional Photo
"The Breakfast Gang" was a staple of KFRC's
morning schedule for many years. This undated promotional photograph
sheet, 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.
SOURCE: Bay Area Radio Museum Collection.
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