Media in the San Francisco Bay Area
The media in the San Francisco Bay Area has historically focused on San Francisco but also includes two other major media centers, Oakland and San Jose. The Federal Communications Commission, Nielsen Media Research, and other similar media organizations treat the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose Area as one entire media market. The region hosts to one of the oldest radio stations in the United States still in existence, KCBS (AM) (740 kHz), founded by engineer Charles Herrold in 1909. As the home of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area is also a technologically advanced and innovative region, with many companies involved with Internet media or influential websites.
Antennas outside the KGO-TV studios, west of The Embarcadero; KRON-TV is housed in the same building.
The San Francisco Bay Area is currently the tenth-largest television market in the United States, with five of the six major U.S. television networks (ABC, CBS, The CW, NBC, and Fox) having owned-and-operated stations serving the region.[15] All six, plus major Spanish-language networks Telemundo, Univision, and UniMás, also own and operate stations that serve the San Francisco market. KPIX, Channel 5, was San Francisco's first television station when it signed on the air on December 22, 1948; it was also the first commercial television station in northern California.
In addition to local television channels, several television networks have regional news bureaus in the San Francisco Bay Area, including BBC, CNN, ESPN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera America, Russia Today, CCTV America, and PBS. Regional sports networks NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California both originate from the studios of NBC-Telemundo duopoly KNTV-KSTS.