Ken Ackerman, quintessential Bay Area radio announcer, dies

Ken Ackerman, whose classic, stentorian radio announcer’s voice graced Bay Area airwaves for more than five decades, has died.

Mr. Ackerman is best remembered as the soothing announcer on the overnight music program “Music ’Til Dawn” on KCBS.

Mr. Ackerman, who was born in 1922 and raised in Sacramento, got into radio while attending Grant Union High School, announcing a student program that aired on KROY.

In a 2009 column about KCBS, The Chronicle’s Carl Nolte wrote that Mr. Ackerman “sounded like polished wood.”

KQW became KCBS in 1949, and in 1953 the CBS network began “Music ’Til Dawn,” offering “beautiful music” and light classics, and featuring a local announcer for each of its owned and operated stations.

By the time “Music ’Til Dawn” ended in 1970, KCBS had switched from a variety format to all news during the day.

Stanford University’s library is home to a donation he made of recordings of live jazz broadcasts from the 1950s and ’60s in various San Francisco clubs.