WFDF
 | |
| City of license | Farmington Hills, Michigan |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area |
Metro Detroit Flint, Michigan The Thumb Southwestern Ontario, Canada |
| Branding | The Word Network Radio |
| Slogan |
Superstation in HD "Holy Deliverance" |
| Frequency | 910 kHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | May 25, 1922 (as WEAA in Flint, moved to Farmington Hills in 2006) |
| Format | Christian radio |
| Power |
50,000 watts (day) 25,000 watts (night) |
| Class | B (regional) |
| Facility ID | 13664 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°03′57″N 83°23′39″W / 42.06583°N 83.39417°W |
| Callsign meaning | Frank D. Fallain (original owner) |
| Former callsigns | WEAA (1922-1925) |
| Affiliations | Radio Disney (2002-2015) |
| Owner |
The Word Network (Kevin Adell) (Church of the Word) |
| Sister stations | WADL |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website |
thewordnetworkradio |
WFDF (910 AM) is a Religious formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Farmington Hills, Michigan, serving the Metro Detroit. The station is owned and operated by The Word Network.
History
The station began broadcasting in 1922 as WEAA in Flint. The call letters were changed to WFDF in 1925, in honor of the founder of the station, Frank D. Fallain (1890-1968).
For many years the station featured a middle-of-the-road music format targeting Flint. WFDF experimented with a Top 40 rock format (using the nickname "Giant 91") for a time in the early 1970s, but the station's older listeners disliked the change and tuned out in droves, leading the station to shift its music mix back toward Adult Contemporary by 1975. In the 1980s, as popular music formats on AM were dying and shifting to FM, WFDF became an Adult Standards station and a favorite with the older demographics. WFDF's format shifted to News/Talk in 1993. By 2001, the station was owned by Cumulus Broadcasting.
Move to Detroit
In 2002, Cumulus sold the station to ABC and in August, the station began featuring programming from Radio Disney. In 2003, ABC began preparations to move WFDF' to the Detroit market. It announced plans for a new array (of eight towers) in Monroe County, Michigan, and (first) applied to use the new site only for daytime operation (with Flint in the northwest corner of the proposed daytime coverage area) and to continue using the extant site near Flint during nighttime hours (since providing an interference-free nighttime signal to Flint from the Monroe County site, without exceeding the 50,000 watt maximum power limit, would have been practically impossible). Shortly after WFDF started broadcasting with this two-site operation, they applied to change their city of license to Farmington Hills (a Detroit suburb), with 50,000 watts of daytime power and 25,000 watts at night, both from the Monroe County site. If WFDF' had attempted to make the move in a single step, they could have been forced into a spectrum auction under rules that had recently been enacted at the time.
In order for this change to take place, some channels had to be deleted that would have interfered with the station's present signal. ABC purchased the AM license of WFRO in Fremont, Ohio; which operated at AM 900, while its FM sister was spun off to a new owner. Also operating on AM 900 was WSNQ in Gaylord, Michigan. This station was silenced shortly after its FM station, WMJZ, was spun off to a new owner. With the two AM 900 frequencies now silenced, this paved the way for WFDF to substantially increase its power and move into the more profitable Detroit radio market.
The new array still covers Flint with a city-grade signal during daytime hours. The license for the new facilities was granted by the Federal Communications Commission in January 2006. The city of license was changed in February 2006. The former broadcast towers in Burton, outside Flint, were taken down and dismantled in April 2006.
The station's office is located in Southfield, moving completely away from Genesee County in the spring of 2006.
Sale
On August 13, 2014, Disney put WFDF and twenty-two other Radio Disney stations up for sale, in order to focus more on digital distribution of the Radio Disney network.[1][2]
On November 18, Radio Disney Group announced the sale of the station to The Word Network, owned by Kevin Adell (who also owns the TV station WADL).[3][4]
On January 21, 2015 The Word Network closed on the purchase of WFDF and changed the existing format to its religious format.[3]
The changeover took place with no prior announcement at 5 p.m. on January 20.[5]
WFDF was the last Michigan-based Disney O&O broadcast station in any form.
See also
References
- ↑ Lafayette, Jon (August 13, 2014). "Exclusive: Radio Disney Moving Off Air to Digital". Retrieved August 13, 2014.
- ↑ "Radio Disney to Sell the Majority of Its Stations". Billboard. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 WFDF Joins The Word Network - Radio Insight
- ↑ Radio Disney Sells WFDF/Detroit To The Word Network - All Access
- ↑ http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20150125/NEWS/301259979/adells-wfdf-buy-boosts-reach-rates
Sources
External links
- Query the FCC's AM station database for WFDF
- Radio-Locator Information on WFDF
- Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WFDF
News or history related
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