WGVU-AM

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**WGVU**

Broadcast area	Grand Rapids, Michigan
First air date	May 22, 1992
Frequency	1480 kHz
Format	news/talk
Owner	Grand Valley State University

WGVU-AM is a radio station that serves the Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area and is simulcasted throughout Western Michigan. The main broadcast frequency is 1480 kHz, which is licensed to Kentwood, Michigan, a Grand Rapids suburb. It is simulcast on WGVS 850 kHz, which is licensed to Muskegon. The format is news/talk.

WGVU began broadcasting on May 22, 1992. The station since its inception has served as a public broadcaster and is NPR affiliate.

AM 1480 was for many years the home of WMAX, which was in the late 1950s and early 1960s the leading Top 40 music station in Grand Rapids. Afterward the station played mostly middle of the road and adult contemporary music (and briefly used the WAFT calls for a time in the late 1960s), although WMAX did briefly return to a Top 40-style presentation from about 1972 to 1975. The station dropped its music format in 1980 for a talk format as WTWN and later went silent until Grand Valley returned the station to the air in 1992. WGVU-AM broadcasts in AM Stereo.

Until Grand Valley State University took control of the station (and 95.3 FM in Whitehall, Michigan) in late 1998, AM 850 was the home of Muskegon's heritage radio station, WKBZ, which dates back to 1926 when it began at 1500 AM in Ludington, Michigan. WKBZ now broadcasts at 1090 AM (formerly WMUS-AM) with a news/talk format.

[edit] Trivia

Victor Lundberg, a newscaster at WMAX 1480, had a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967 with a spoken-word piece titled "An Open Letter To My Teenage Son."