WMT (AM)

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WMT (AM)
City of license	Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Branding	600 WMT
First air date	July 30, 1922 (as WJAM)
Frequency	600 (kHz)
Format	News/talk
ERP	5,000 watts
Class	B
Callsign meaning	Waterloo Morning Tribune (now-defunct newspaper that once owned the station)
Owner	Clear Channel Communications
Website	www.wmtradio.com

WMT is a news/talk radio station broadcasting at 600 AM in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the United States. It is owned by Clear Channel Communications. The station's signal reaches most of Iowa and portions of neighboring states during daylight hours. [1]

Contents 1 History 2 Personalities and programming 3 References 4 External links

[edit] History

WMT was founded by Douglas "Tex" Perham as WJAM on July 30, 1922. In 1928, Harry Shaw purchased WJAM and moved the station from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo, renaming it WMT (for the now-defunct Waterloo Morning Tribune newspaper that he owned). Shaw sold the station to the Cowles family, owners of the Des Moines Register, in October 1934. WMT moved back to Cedar Rapids the next year, occupying the studios of the defunct KWCR radio after KWCR's frequency was taken over by KSO in Des Moines, another Cowles station. (WMT continued to operate a secondary studio in Waterloo until 1947.) The Cowleses sold WMT to Delaware-based American Broadcasting Stations in 1944.

WMT-TV, the first television station in Cedar Rapids, signed on at channel 2 on September 30, 1953. On February 27, 1963, WMT-FM debuted at 96.5 MHz with the same song, "Don't Send Me Posies When It's Shoesies That I Need," that was played on the AM station's inaugural broadcast 41 years earlier.

Ownership of the WMT stations was passed on to Orion Broadcasting of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1968. In 1981, Cosmos Broadcasting of Greenville, South Carolina, purchased WMT-AM and FM; they had also planned to purchase WMT-TV, but the television station was sold to Guy Gannett Communications (who renamed it KGAN) because of ownership restrictions at the time. (WMT and KGAN continue to broadcast from the same building on Collins Road, known as "Broadcast Park"; however, WMT now gets its weather reports from KWWL-TV.)

An ownership group that included former Iowa governor Robert D. Ray and sportscaster Forrest "Frosty" Mitchell purchased WMT on October 1, 1986. On January 1, 1996, Palmer Communications (owners of WHO radio in Des Moines) acquired WMT; WHO and WMT were later sold to Jacor Broadcasting, which was eventually acquired by current owner Clear Channel Communications.

[edit] Personalities and programming

Current local talk shows on WMT (as of mid-2006) include Collins & Company, The Expert Hour, The Bob Bruce Radio Experience, and Evening Edition with Andy Petersen. A long-running weekend show is The Open Line, where listeners have shared recipes since 1963. WMT also simulcasts two shows with sister station WHO, Mickelson in the Morning with Jan Mickelson and The Big Show with Ken Root, Mark Pearson, and Bruce Gaarder. Syndicated talk show hosts include Rush Limbaugh, Jim Bohannon, and George Noory's Coast to Coast AM.

WMT has also been a longtime home for Iowa Hawkeyes football and basketball games. Play-by-play announcers over the years included Lawson "Tait" Cummins (a former sportswriter with The Gazette), Ron Gonder, Frosty Mitchell, and Gary Dolphin, who has handled the play-by-play duties since Learfield Communications was granted the exclusive broadcast rights to Hawkeye sports in 1997. WMT also has a proud tradition of broadcasting Friday night high school football and basketball games from throughout Eastern Iowa.

[edit] References

• Kueter, Dale. "Owners of WHO Gain 2nd High-Profile Station", The Gazette, 1995-06-17, p. 1A. (Retrieved on 2006-08-01 via Newsbank.)
• Stein, Jeff (2004). Making Waves: The People and Places of Iowa Broadcasting. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: WDG Communications. ISBN 0-9718323-1-5. 

[edit] External links

• WMT radio's official website
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WMT