| City of license | Wilmington, Delaware |
|---|---|
| Slogan | "Delaware's Most Listened to Station for News, Traffic & Weather" |
| Frequency | 1150 kHz |
| First air date | July 22, 1922[1] |
| Format | News/Talk |
| Power | 5000 watts |
| Class | B |
| Affiliations | CBS Radio, Associated Press |
| Owner | Delmarva Broadcasting Company |
| Website | http://www.wdel.com/ |
WDEL (1150 AM) is a news/talk radio station in Wilmington, Delaware. WDEL first signed on in 1922 and is one of the first 100 broadcast radio stations licensed in the US. WDEL is a class B (regional) station, currently operating at 5,000 watts.
For much of its history, WDEL was an NBC affiliate. Prior to 1942, WDEL was co-owned with WILM with WDEL taking programs primarily from NBC's Red Network and WILM taking programs mostly from NBC's Blue Network.
With the demise of old time network radio in the 1950s, WDEL adopted a full service format combining news, sports and middle of the road music. Among its personalities were disc jockeys Dick Graham, Bill Horleman and Arnold Zenker, sports director Bill Pheiffer and news reporters Manning Kimmel [2], Joe Mosbrook [3], Burke Hully and Pat Ciarrocchi[4].
In the mid-1980s, WDEL was the first Wilmington radio station to provide traffic reports. WDEL's "TrafficWatch on the 9's" remains on the air today. WDEL employs three TrafficWatch reporters - most notably Robin Bryson. Two of the reporters travel in vans and report from the roads.
In the mid-1990s, WDEL moved to a news/talk format broadcasting local news and a local call-in show in the morning, plus various nationally-syndicated programs including Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, Mitch Albom and Sean Hannity. In 2006, WDEL adopted a schedule of mostly local-live news and talk.
In 2004, WDEL was awarded by the National Association of Broadcasters with its prestigious Crystal Award for public service.
In 2005, WDEL became one of the first radio stations in the nation (if not THE first) to produce web-based news video for its website, WDEL.com.
WDEL has won several prestigious Edward R. Murrow awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, including national awards in 2007 for Best Website and 2009 for Best Newscast. WDEL has also been named News Operation of the Year by the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association numerous times.
In 2011, WDEL won a prestigious Marconi Award from the National Association of Broadcasters for "Medium market station of the year."
WDEL airs Philadelphia Phillies baseball, Philadelphia Eagles football, plus other local and national sports events. WDEL also airs Wesley College football and numerous New Castle County high school football and basketball games, including the state championship games for both sports.
WDEL is privately owned and operated by Delmarva Broadcasting Company, which owns 11 stations in the region including Wilmington's WSTW, the former WDEL-FM. Delmarva is a subsidiary of Steinman Enterprises, a family-owned Lancaster, Pennsylvania newspaper and mining company.
WDEL once operated WDEL-TV,[2] which became WVUE and later went off the air. The former frequency of WVUE is now WHYY-TV.
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