| City of license | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Branding | "Talk Radio 1210 WPHT" |
| Frequency | 1210 kHz (also on HD Radio) |
| Repeaters | WOGL 98.1-HD3 Philadelphia |
| First air date | May 1922 |
| Format | Talk radio |
| Power | 50,000 watts |
| Class | A |
| Facility ID | 9634 |
| Callsign meaning | PHiladelphia's Talk |
| Former callsigns | WCAU (1922–1990) WOGL (1990–1994) WGMP (1994–1996) WPTS (1996) |
| Affiliations | CBS Radio Network |
| Owner | CBS Radio (CBS Radio East Inc.) |
| Sister stations | KYW, KYW-TV, WIP, WIP-FM, WOGL, WPSG |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | cbsphilly.com |
WPHT is a CBS Radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting on 1210 kHz. A 50,000-watt clear-channel station, it broadcasts in an omnidirectional pattern that allows it to cover most of the eastern half of North America at night. It uses the nickname "Talk Radio 1210 WPHT." The station is owned by CBS Radio. Its transmitter is located in Moorestown, New Jersey. WPHT's studios are located at 2 Bala Plaza in Bala Cynwyd, PA. WPHT is the flagship radio station of MLB's Philadelphia Phillies.
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The station first began broadcasting in May 1922 as WCAU, a 250-watt station operating out of electrician William Durham's home on 19th and Market Streets. It is Philadelphia's third-oldest radio station, having signed on two months after WIP and WFIL. In 1924, WCAU was sold to law partners Ike Levy and Daniel Murphy. Murphy later bowed out in favor of Ike's brother, Leon.
The station began its long association with CBS in 1927, when it was one of 16 charter affiliates of a network called the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System, airing the network's first program on September 18, 1927.[1] The network struggled to find advertisers, however, and William S. Paley, who had previously purchased time on the station for an entertainment program promoting his family's La Palina cigars, bought the network with $500,000 of his family's money and renamed it the Columbia Broadcasting System.
In 1933, WCAU moved to a new studio on Chestnut Street, the first building in the country designed for a radio station. A series of power increases brought the station to 50,000 watts. The Levy brothers eventually became major stockholders in CBS, and were members of the network's board for many years.
The Levys agreed to sell WCAU-AM-FM to The Philadelphia Record in 1946. However, the Record folded shortly thereafter, and its "goodwill"—including the rights to buy WCAU-AM-FM—passed to the Philadelphia Bulletin, which already owned WPEN-AM-FM, and had secured a construction permit for WPEN-TV (channel 10). In a complex deal, the Bulletin sold off WPEN and WCAU-FM, while changing WPEN-FM's calls to WCAU-FM and WPEN-TV's calls to WCAU-TV. The Levys continued to run the stations while serving as consultants to the Bulletin, and it was largely due to their influence that WCAU-TV took to the air on May 23, 1948 as a CBS affiliate. The stations moved to a new studio in Bala Cynwyd in 1952.
In 1957, the Bulletin sold WCAU-AM-FM-TV to CBS. This came because the Bulletin had recently bought WGBI-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania and changed its call letters to WDAU-TV to complement WCAU. However, the two television stations' signals overlapped so much that it constituted a duopoly under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules of the time. CBS had to get a waiver to keep its new Philadelphia cluster, however. In addition to significant overlap of the television stations' grade B signals, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of clear channel stations with overlapping nighttime signals.
In the 1960s, WCAU gradually began moving away from music programming; by 1967 it had become a talk station with considerable strengths in news and sports (all of Philadelphia's major professional sports teams had WCAU as their flagship radio station at one time or another). Although the station's ratings were good, in the mid-1970s CBS made a corporate decision to move WCAU to an all-news format. The station never caught up to established all-news outlet KYW, and by 1980 was making moves to reclaim its heritage as a talk and sports leader. However, FM talk station WWDB had established itself as a strong competitor, and WCAU struggled for years to attract listeners and establish a consistent image.
On August 15, 1990 CBS abruptly changed the WCAU call letters to WOGL after 68 years and dropped the talk format in favor of oldies, partially simulcast with its FM sister station, by then WOGL-FM. In 1993, the AM station began running sports talk after 7 PM. The station went all-sports as WGMP (The Game) on March 18, 1994. However, once again 1210 was taking on an entrenched competitor—this time WIP—and WGMP's largely syndicated program lineup won few listeners away from WIP's heavily local schedule.
A year later, CBS merged with Westinghouse Electric Corporation, thus making 1210 AM a sister station to its ancient rival, KYW. With this move, the higher-rated KYW became the flagship station of CBS Radio's Philadelphia cluster. Realizing that WGMP would never be able to compete against WIP, CBS began phasing out the sports talk shows in the summer of 1996. Finally, on August 23, 1210 AM went all-talk once again as WPTS (We're Philadelphia's Talk Station). The call letters changed again less than a month later to the current WPHT to avoid confusion with nearby Trenton, New Jersey's WPST. Ironically, only a year later, WIP became a sister station to WPHT when CBS bought its owner, Infinity Broadcasting Corporation.
Today, WPHT is a mostly conservative talk-radio station with a focus on issues local to the Delaware Valley. The weekday lineup includes Chris Stigall from 5:30 to 9am, Dom Giordano from 9am to Noon, Rush Limbaugh from Noon to 3pm, Michael Smerconish from 3pm to 7pm, Gary R'Nel from 7pm to 10pm, Rick Grimaldi/Rich Zeoli/R.J. McKay from 10pm to Midnight, and Coast to Coast AM from Midnight to 5:30am. Saturday shows include Rick the Fix-It Guy at 6am, "The Big Money Show" with Steve Cordasco from 7am to 10am, "The Mutual Fund Show with Adam Bold" at 10am, and "Remember When" with Steve Ross and Jim Murray from 11pm to 1am. Sunday shows include Sid Mark's "Sunday with Sinatra" from 8am to 1pm, "The Crime Guys" with Walt Hunter and George Anastasia from 8pm to 10pm and "Dr. Mazz" Anthony Mazzarelli from 10pm to Midnight
WPHT is the Flagship station for all Philadelphia Phillies baseball games. WPHT also airs Temple University football and men's basketball. Some Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia 76ers games may be heard on WPHT when multiple teams are playing at the same time and their normal flagships, WIP and WIP-FM, are overbooked.