WWDB

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WWDB, 860 AM, is a daytime-only radio station based in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania (in the Delaware Valley region near the city of Philadelphia.) It bills itself as "money talk radio," with financial information and news. Among other programs, WWDB carries Imus in the Morning.

The station was founded around 1926 as WTEL. It began operating on the 860 frequency in the late 1950s; before that, it had shared time on 1340 with WHAT. WTEL was best known as a foreign-language broadcaster. In the late 1990s the call letters were changed to WWDB, and the station began operating with a talk format as a companion station to WWDB-FM; some of the FM station's older personalities were moved to the AM station in an attempt to increase the FM's appeal in younger demographics without alienating older listeners. The strategy was not successful, and by 2000 the WTEL call sign had returned and the station was programming gospel music. The gospel format was in place for a fairly short time before the call letters were changed back to WWDB and the current format was launched.

The WWDB call letters were first used in Philadelphia at 96.5 on the FM band in the late 1960s. The station had previously been WHAT-FM; it operated with a jazz format that did not change when the call letters did. In the early 1970s WWDB tried an adult contemporary format during some hours, then reverted to jazz full-time, then adopted a talk format in 1975. The talk format was one of the first successful ones on FM, lasting until November 2000.

[edit] External links

• WWDB AM