The 49ers' flagship radio stations are KSAN 107.7 FM ("The Bone"), KNBR 680 AM, and KTCT 1050 AM. KSAN airs all 49ers games on FM. On AM, they are simulcast on KTCT in August, September, and October and on KNBR from October to the end of the season. All three stations are owned by Cumulus Media. Joe Starkey, best known as the voice of the University of California and The Play, was previously the color commentator on the broadcasts next to legendary announcer Lon Simmons in 1987 and 1988 and took over as lead commentator in 1989. Lon Simmons and Gordy Soltau did the broadcasts on KSFO in the 1950s and 1960s. For a brief period in the late 1970s and early 1980s Don Klein, the Voice of Stanford did the 49er games. Starkey first teamed with former Detroit Lions and KPIX Sports Director, Wayne Walker and then former 49ers linebacker Gary Plummer formed the broadcast team from 1998 to 2008, with Starkey retiring after the 2008 season. Ted Robinson replaced Starkey and teamed up with Plummer for the 2009-10 seasons, then with Eric Davis from 2011-13. Since 2014, Robinson has teamed up with Tim Ryan on the broadcasts.
KSAN is a commercial radio station licensed to San Mateo, California, with its transmitter located on San Bruno Mountain. It is owned and operated by Cumulus Media and broadcasts to the San Francisco Bay Area. KSAN airs a classic rock music format. The station's studios are located in San Francisco's SoMa district.
KNBR is a San Francisco, California AM radio station, broadcasting on a clear channel at 680 kHz from transmitting facilities near Belmont, California. KNBR's non-directional 50,000-watt class-A signal can be heard throughout much of the western United States and as far west as the Hawaiian Islands at night. For several decades, KNBR enjoyed a long history as the flagship station of NBC's West Coast radio operations.
Cumulus Media, Inc. is an American broadcasting company and is the third largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States behind Entercom and iHeartMedia, Inc. As of July 1, 2017, Cumulus lists ownership of 446 stations in 90 media markets. It also owns Westwood One. Its headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Its subsidiaries include Cumulus Broadcasting LLC, Cumulus Licensing LLC and Broadcast Software International Inc.
Most preseason games are telecast on KPIX, channel 5, with Robinson and Ryan. Bob Fitzgerald, the TV voice of the Golden State Warriors, does play-by-play and Keena Turner provides color commentary on the radio in the preseason.
Robert James Fitzgerald is an American sports broadcaster who is currently the TV play-by-play announcer for the NBA's Golden State Warriors on NBC Sports Bay Area and is a co-host of the show Fitz and Brooks on KNBR with co-host Rod Brooks.
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 1946 in Philadelphia, the Warriors relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 and took the city's name, before changing its geographic moniker to Golden State in 1971. They play their home games at the Oracle Arena.
Keena Turner is an American football executive and former player, coach, and broadcaster. He was selected by the Miami Dolphins in the second round of the 1980 NFL draft and traded on draft day to the San Francisco 49ers. A 6'2" 237 pound linebacker from Purdue University, Turner played in 11 NFL seasons, spent his entire career with the 49ers. A one time Pro Bowl selection, he retired from the 49ers with four Super Bowl rings.
Regular season games are mostly broadcast locally on FOX (KTVU), though some games are broadcast on CBS (KPIX) if the 49ers host a team from the AFC. Nationally televised night games on Sunday Night Football (NBC) and Monday Night Football (ESPN), as well as Thursday night special games (NFL Network), are also occasionally played (though the number of these broadcasts is dependent on the 49ers' success from the previous season, however under current television rules the 49ers and/or their crosstown rivals the Oakland Raiders get at least one national TV game each year because of complications relating to the Bay Area television market).
KTVU, virtual channel 2, is a Fox owned-and-operated television station licensed to Oakland, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation, as part of a duopoly with San Jose-licensed independent station KICU-TV. The two stations share studios at Jack London Square in downtown Oakland; KTVU's transmitter is located at Sutro Tower in San Francisco.
NBC Sunday Night Football is a weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006 with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which opened that year's preseason. NBC took over the rights to the Sunday prime time game telecasts from ESPN, which carried the broadcasts from 1987 to 2005. Previously, NBC had aired American Football League (AFL), and later American Football Conference (AFC), games from 1960 until 1998, when CBS took over those rights.
NBC Sports is the programming division of the American broadcast network NBC, owned by the NBCUniversal Television Group division of NBCUniversal, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its dedicated national sports cable channels. Formerly operating as "a service of NBC News", it broadcasts a diverse array of sports events, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, NASCAR, the NHL, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the IndyCar Series, the Premier League, and the Triple Crown, among others. Other programming from outside producers – such as coverage of the Ironman Triathlon – is also presented on the network through NBC Sports. With Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal, its own cable sports networks were aligned with NBC Sports into a part of the division known as the NBC Sports Group.
