WHKW
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WHKW | |
 |
|
| Broadcast area | Greater Cleveland |
|---|---|
| Branding | AM 1220 The Word |
| Slogan | Cleveland's Christian Talk |
| First air date | April 13, 2005 (May 15, 1924 as WDBK) |
| Frequency | 1220 (kHz) |
| Format | Religious |
| Power | 50,000 watts |
| Class | B |
| Callsign meaning | WHK The Word |
| Former callsigns | WHKZ (2005) WHK (2001-2005) WHKC (July-August 2001) WKNR (1990-2001) WGAR (1930-1990) WFJC (1927-1930) WDBK (1924-1927) |
| Owner | Salem Communications |
| Website | www.whkwradio.com |
WHKW is an AM radio station in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, operating on 1220 kHz. The station carries religious programming from the Salem Network. The bulk of WHKW's programming is simulcast on WHKZ on 1440 kHz in Warren, Ohio.
The 1220 frequency in Cleveland was the home to AM radio station WGAR for 50 years. It then served as the home of WKNR before the great frequency swap of 2001.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] WGAR
The history of the current WHKW began with AM station WDBK, which signed on the air on May 15, 1924 with 250 watts of power. The station was owned by Stanley Broz in the name of the M.F. Broz Furniture, Hardware and Radio Co., and was located at 13918 Union Avenue in Cleveland. The station moved to Boltan Square Hotel on Carnegie Avenue in 1925, and was using the slogan, "Broadcasting from Cleveland." In September 1927, Broz sold the station to William F. Jones, and WDBK was taken off the air. The station relocated to the Akron Beacon Journal building in Akron, and resumed broadcast operations in November 1927 as WFJC, the new call letters being derived from the owner's initials. Sam Townshend was listed as co-owner, and the first two announcers were Cyril Jones and Jerry McKiernam.
Jones sold the station to George A. Richards of Detroit in September 1930, and Richards moved the station back to Cleveland. He obtained a new callsign based on his initials, and WGAR signed on the air on December 15, 1930. WGAR was part of the Goodwill Station group that included WJR and KMPC, both also owned by Richards.
In 1937 WGAR became Cleveland's CBS affiliate. On October 30, 1938 it broadcast Mercury Theater's "War of the Worlds," and it was left to a young staff announcer named Jack Paar to go on the air and calm Cleveland listeners by telling them that the program was only a dramatization. WGAR produced some programs for the CBS network, one of the notable ones being Wings Over Jordan, a popular Sunday morning CBS show that had the widest audience of any African-American broadcast.
Originally at 1450 kHz, it switched to 1480 kHz on March 29, 1941 during the NARBA frequency shift, and then to 1220 kHz on June 4, 1944. On July 4, 1947, it increased its power from 5,000 to 50,000 watts during daytime hours. WGAR was the flagship station for Cleveland Browns broadcasts 1946–1949, 1954 and 1956–1961. Richards died in May 1951, and WGAR was purchased in 1953 by People's Broadcasting Corp., a company that had been founded seven years earlier by the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation to serve rural communities. People's Broadcasting became Nationwide Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Nationwide Insurance in 1954. (WJR was sold to Storer Broadcasting; KMPC was purchased by Gene Autry.)
With the demise of network radio, the rise of television, and the emergence of Top 40 powerhouses like KYW, WERE and WHK in the 1950s, WGAR had to try various music formats as a result. The station settled into an adult contemporary format thoughout this whole time, with Tom Armstrong in the morning slot for much of this period. FM installations at 99.5 MHz were lauched in 1948, but WGAR-FM never saw more than a few hours of operation per week.
In 1970, new management was brought in to WGAR, and both the AM and FM stations made several dramatic moves. Don Imus, who already had a controversal persona even at that time, was hired to host morning drive on the AM side. WGAR-FM then went to a 24-hour operation, renamed WNCR, and adopted a progressive rock format that was tapped two years earlier by WMMS. Even though Imus left a little more than a year later to go to WNBC in New York, (albeit with one brief return to do afternoons on WHK in 1979) he was replaced by John Lanigan. Lanigan, who himself was nearly as controversal as Imus, had a very successful run in mornings until he left for WMJI in 1985.
The station abandoned its adult contemporary format for a country music format on July 15, 1984. It donated its entire collection of jazz recordings to WCPN, the new public radio outlet that was going on the air the following September. WGAR soon simulcast the country music format with the FM sister station, which went back to WGAR-FM, starting in 1986. By 1990, WGAR was sold off to Douglas Broadcasting and Cablevision Systems Corp. WGAR-FM simply became WGAR, while the call sign for the AM facility was changed to WKNR. A five-minute sendoff produced by several WGAR-FM staffers, including tributes by Don Imus and Jack Paar, aired on WGAR just before the changeover took place on July 13, 1990. After it aired, WKNR signed on by picking up a satellite-based oldies feed.
[edit] WKNR
While WGAR continued its' format at 99.5 MHz, WKNR slowly assembled several blocks of locally-based sports talk shows, starting in January of 1991. Eventually, the new station went with an all-sports format, and in 1992, lured the Cleveland Indians broadcasts away from long-time flagship WWWE. For several years in the mid 1990s, WKNR was home to Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Browns, and Ohio State football and basketball broadcasts.
The fortunes of WKNR, however, started to sour when the Cleveland Browns relocated after the 1995 NFL season. Despite a successful outcry by the community — and in part to competiting sports stations WKNR, WHK and WWWE — the intellectual property of the team was to lay dormant for three years, leaving a void in WKNR's play-by-play lineup. A popular draw on the AM dial, WKNR was left to carry Cincinnati Bengals football from 1996 to 1998. WKNR was then forced to overbid to beat WTAM - the former WWWE — into a renewal of its Cleveland Indians contract, effective with the 1997 season.
While this allowed WKNR to air the World Series run of the 1997 Indians, the deal put financial strain on WKNR—Cablevision's lone radio property. (Ironically, the current owner of the Cleveland Indians, Larry Dolan, is the brother of the president of Cablevision, Charles Dolan.)
On August 19, 1997, Jacor announced the purchase of WKNR from Cablevision Systems Corp. 7. Jacor, which also owned WTAM, had the Cleveland Indians broadcasts moved back to WTAM beginning with the 1998 season and the Cleveland Browns rights transferred to WMJI and WTAM for the 1999 season, leaving significant holes in WKNR's programming.
Jacor then swapped WKNR with Capstar Broadcasting’s WTAE in Pittsburgh in 1998 as part of the Justice Department settlement when Jacor purchased Nationwide Communications - ironically, the same people who sold WGAR (AM) in 1990 and still owned WGAR-FM 8. On July 13, 1999, Chancellor Media merged with Capstar Broadcasting to form AMFM Inc., at that time the nation's largest radio station owner with 465 stations. AMFM sold WKNR to Salem Communications on July 20, 2000 as part of a required divestiture when AMFM merged with Clear Channel Communications [1].
In spite of several management and lineup changes, WKNR continues at the 850 kHz location today with the same type of programming that it has had for the last decade. The station was sold off by Salem Communications to Good Karma Broadcasting, LLC in December 2006, and are expected to move to new studios in downtown Cleveland with the year.
[edit] WHK
On July 3, 2001, a seven-way frequency swap occurred involving four stations in Cleveland. Salem Communications moved the WHK calls and religious format from 1420-AM to 1220-AM, the WKNR calls and sports talk format were moved from 1220-AM to 850-AM, and Radio Seaway took over the 1420-AM frequency from Salem and it became WCLV - with a standards format displaced from the 850-AM frequency.
Seaway's WCLV-FM moved from 95.5-FM to 104.9-FM, Clear Channel's WAKS moved from 104.9-FM in Lorain to 96.5-FM in Akron, Clear Channel's WKDD moved from 96.5-FM in Akron to 98.1-FM in Canton, and Salem's WHK-FM moved from 98.1-FM in Canton to 95.5-FM in Cleveland and became WFHM.
Shortly after WHK's religious programming moved to the 1220-AM signal, a simulcast of WHK's programming started on WHKW 1440-AM in Warren. The 1440 kHz facility dates back to the 1940's, and previously was the home to WRRN (194? - 1948), WHHH (1948 - 1981) , WRRO (1981 - 1998) and WRBP (1998 - 2001). 1440-AM had been dark for a month prior to becoming WHKW, and legally couched the WFHM call sign until the 95.5 MHz facility - which was acquired by Salem and took a Contemporary Christian format - could assume those call letters.
[edit] WHKW
The calls on 1220-AM changed again on April 13, 2005, to WHKW after Salem reacquired the 1420 kHz facility and placed the WHK calls on its' original frequency. Accordingly, the call letters of 1440-AM in Warren changed to WHKZ.
WHKZ simulcasts WHKW throughout much of the broadcast day, but does break away in the late evenings to air Warren native Hugh Hewitt's talk show, which is syndicated by Salem Communications. Some other infomercials and religious programming air separately between the two stations.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by WRMR |
AM 850 in Cleveland, Ohio June 11, 1985-July 3, 2001 |
Succeeded by WKNR |
| Preceded by WKNR |
AM 1220 in Cleveland, Ohio July 3, 2001-April 15, 2005 |
Succeeded by WHK |
| Preceded by WHK |
AM 1220 in Cleveland, Ohio April 15, 2005-Present |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Preceded by WHK |
AM 1420 in Cleveland, Ohio March 5, 1922-July 3, 2001 |
Succeeded by WCLV (2001-2003) WRMR (2003-2005) |
| Preceded by WRMR |
AM 1420 in Cleveland, Ohio July 3, 2001-April 15, 2005 |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
| AM Radio Stations in the Cleveland, Ohio Market (Arbitron #26)
By Frequency: 850 | 930 | 1000 | 1040 | 1100 | 1220 | 1260 | 1300 | 1320 | 1330 | 1380 | 1420 | 1460 | 1490 | 1540 By Callsign: WABQ | WCCD | WDLW | WELW | WEOL | WERE | WHK | WHKW | WJMO | WJTB | WKNR | WOBL | WTAM | WWGK | WWMK |
By Frequency: 570 | 600 | 790 | 830 | 940 | 1240 | 1280 | 1330 | 1390 | 1440 | 1470 | 1490 | 1500 | 1540 | 1570
By Callsign: WANR | WASN | WBBW | WGFT | WGRP | WHKZ | WJST | WKBN | WKTX | WLOA | WNIO | WOHI | WPIC | WRTK | WSOM
