WJMO

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**WJMO**

City of license	Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Broadcast area	Cleveland
Branding	"Praise 1490AM"
Slogan	Cleveland's Inspiration Station
First air date	June 1, 1947 (at 1540-AM)
Frequency	1490 (kHz)
Format	Urban Gospel
Power	1,000 watts
Class	C
Callsign meaning	Wentworth J. Marshall, (original) Owner
Former callsigns	WSRS (1948-1958)
Owner	Radio One
Website	www.1490wjmo.com

WJMO is an AM radio station licensed to Cleveland Heights, Ohio operating on 1490 kHz, with studios at 2510 St. Clair Avenue and a transmitter located along Euclid Avenue near East 118th Street. The station is owned by Radio One, and is the only full-time gospel music-formatted station in the market.

The station became a gospel music outlet in May 1999 after many years with an R&B oldies format ("solid gold soul"), which was reputed by many to have been the longest running such station in the country.

[edit] History

WJMO went on the air on June 1, 1947 licensed to Cleveland as a daytime-only broadcaster at 1540 kHz with studios at 2157 Euclid Avenue and a power of 1000 watts. The owner was Wentworth J. Marshall, formerly head of the Marshall Drug Co. chain, and the general manager was David M. Baylor. When it debuted, WJMO was the only Cleveland radio station without a network affiliation. As a result, the station specialized in recorded music. Early staff included Gene Carroll (mornings), Howie Lund (afternoons), and Billy Evans on sports [1].

In 1948 WJMO carried the football games of Western Reserve College Red Cats, both at home from League Park and on the road. In the first broadcast on September 25 Gil Gibbons called the action as Western Reserve met Western Michigan in Kalamazoo.

On June 5, 1952, in an attempt to emphaze music rather than DJs, Baylor issued an orders to play four songs every 15 minutes. As a result a number of DJs chose to leave the station. Later than year, Wentworth sold the station on August 20 for $100,000 to Maryland-based United Broadcasting, headed by Richard Eaton. Ownership was later put in the name of Eaton's affiliated company Friendly Broadcasting of Ohio.

On Feburary 1, 1958, Friendly Broadcasting of Columbus assumed control of WSRS 1490-AM and 95.3-FM from Sam R. Sague, and switched call letters, licenses, studios and facilites. WJMO took over the former WSRS offices at 2156 Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, and WSRS-FM became WJMO-FM, later WCUY. WSRS 1540-AM soon became WABQ, whose format and call letters currently reside at 1460-AM. The 1540-AM frequency is currently WWGK.

During the 1960s WJMO moved to a black-oriented format. In 1970 a dispute arose over working conditions and the lack of blacks in key positions. Key station personnel staged a "sick out," which took the station off the air. The dispute attracted the involvement of a number of groups, including the Cleveland chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The SCLC asked sponsors to withhold advertising from WJMO or face a boycott by black community groups. In retaliation, the personnel involved in the "sick out" were fired. In the efforts to resolve matters, the fired personnel were reinstated, and Kennard "Ken" Hawkins was appointed the station's general manager. Hawkins became the first African American to hold that position at a Cleveland radio station.

United Broadcasting ran into problems with the FCC regarding the operation of its stations in Washington and Miami. It was also alleged that Eaton bribed the ABC network to gain favorable terms for three of its stations.

Meanwhile in Cleveland, United Broadcasting had other problems. On December 11, 1973, station vice president Van Lane (real name Morris Schecter) and engineer John Rees of Washington's WRC radio pled guilty in federal court to charges of bugging Hawkins' office. It was later revealed that the lines were linked between Hawkins' office at the station and Lane's home in Shaker Heights. Lane and Rees were fined $500 each. Former United Broadcasting controller and VP Morton Silverman of Columbia, Maryland, was also charged with three felony counts of illegal wiretapping, but the Justice Department agreed to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor.

A year later, on December 2, 1974, Washington-based attorney Roy F. Perkins, Jr., the former attorney for United Broadcasting, pled guilty in federal court to a misdemeanor charge of bugging Hawkins' office. He was fined $2,000. Perkins claimed that he authorized the bugging because of rumors of payola at the station [2].

In January 1990, United Broadcasting re-acquired the 92.3 MHz facility, by now WRQC, and changed its callsign to WJMO-FM. United Broadcasting sold WJMO and WJMO-FM in 1992 to Zebra Communications, owned by Xenophon Zapis (owner of Zapis Communications and WZAK), Lynn Tolliver (WZAK program director) and Bobby (Otis) Rush (WZAK DJ). Although Tolliver and Rush were both African Americans, Zapis was a key party in the new ownership, and the sale was contested by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The sale was approved by the FCC in 1993 [3], and WJMO became the first radio station with significant African American ownership in the Cleveland area. In 1994, as a result of the legal battles, the SCLC gained significant control of WJMO, which was seen as less profitable than WJMO-FM [4], and the call letters of the FM station were changed to WZJM—a combination of WZAK and WJMO. (Note: the WJMO-FM calls did resurface on the 99.5 MHz facility in Washington, DC - then co-owned with WJMO - in 1999. Today it broadcasts as WIHT.)

On August 12, 1998, Chancellor Media Corporation of Texas announced its purchase of WJMO and WZJM from Zebra Communications, along with its purchase of four other Cleveland radio stations, WZAK, WDOK 102.1-FM, WQAL 104.1-FM, and WRMR 850-AM, for $275 million [5]. It was, at the time, the largest radio deal in Cleveland broadcasting history.

On July 13, 1999, Chancellor Media merged with Capstar Broadcasting - who owned WKNR 1220-AM - to form AMFM Inc., at that time the nation's largest radio station owner with 465 stations. AMFM sold WZAK and WJMO to Radio One on July 20, 2000 as part of a required divestiture when AMFM merged with Clear Channel Communications

[6].

WJMO recently phased out on-air mention of the 'WJMO' calls (save for the top-of-the-hour legal identification) in favor of "Praise 1490: Cleveland's Inspiration Station."