WWJ (AM)

This article is about the AM radio station currently known as WWJ. For the FM radio station formerly known as WWJ, see WXYT-FM. For the TV station currently known as WWJ, see WWJ-TV. For the TV station formerly known as WWJ, see WDIV.

WWJ

File:Wwj newsradio 78927.jpg
Detroit, Michigan
Broadcast area	[1] (Daytime) [2] (Nighttime)
Frequency	950 kHz (HD Radio)
Branding	NewsRadio 950, WWJ
Programming
Format	News
Affiliations	CBS Radio Network
Ownership
Owner	CBS Radio
Sister stations	WOMC, WVMV, WXYT, WXYT-FM, WYCD part of CBS Corp. cluster w/ TV stations WWJ-TV & WKBD
History
First air date	August 20, 1920
Former call signs	WBL (1921-1922) 8MK (1920-1921)
Call sign meaning	FCC issued
Technical information
Facility ID	9621
Class	B
Power	50,000 watts
Transmitter coordinates	42°01′9″N 83°14′23″W
Links
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	www.wwj.com

WWJ (950 AM, "Newsradio 950") is Detroit, Michigan's only 24-hour all-news radio station. Broadcasting at 950 kHz, the station is owned and operated by CBS Corporation subsidiary CBS Radio. The station first went on the air on August 20, 1920 with the call sign 8MK. It is believed to be the first station to broadcast news reports regularly as well as the first regularly scheduled religious broadcast and play-by-play sports broadcast.

WWJ is committed to keeping listeners informed with useful information, including "Traffic and Weather on the 8's" which features 24/7 coverage by the best Detroit Traffic Reporters and AccuWeather forecasts. Although WWJ is the only commercial all news radio station in Michigan, co-owned WWJ-TV is the only CBS Owned-and-operated station without a local news presence.

Station timeline

On August 20, 1920, The Detroit News started the station with the call sign 8MK, assigned to it by the United States Department of Commerce Bureau of Navigation, the government bureau responsible for radio regulation at the time.

8MK was initially licensed to Michael DeLisle Lyons, a teenager, and radio pioneer. He assembled the station in the Detroit News Building but the Scripps family asked him to register the station in his name, because they were worried this new technology might only be a fad, so they wanted to keep some distance.

Later that year, Michael and his brother Frank, also assembled the first radio in a police car in Toledo, Ohio (with Ed Clark who started WJR 760 AM in Detroit). They captured a prowler using the radio, and the story captured headlines across the country. RCA got the contract to install radios in police cars across the country.

The Scripps family were also worried radio might replace newspapers if radio caught on, so they financially supported Michael. In fact, most early radio stations were built by families, who owned newspapers for the same reason . . . fear radio would put them out of business (After all, why buy a paper if you could turn a knob and hear the news?) Michael DeLisle Lyons descended from Francois Bienvenu DeLisle, who served as Cadillac's lieutenant on the founding voyage of Detroit. Francois was also Detroit's first tavernkeeper.

The 8 in the call sign means the station is located in the 8th Radio Inspection District, while the M in the call sign means the station operated under an amateur license. It is not clear why the Detroit News applied for an amateur license instead of an experimental license. As an amateur station, it broadcast at 200 meters (the equivalent of 1500 kHz).

On October 13, 1921 the station was granted a limited commercial license and was assigned the call letters WBL. With the new license, the station began broadcasting at 360 meters (833 kHz), with weather reports and other government reports broadcast at 485 meters (619 kHz).

On March 3, 1922, for reasons that are not known, the call letters, WWJ, were assigned to the station. Some believe the new call letters are an abbreviation for stockholders William and John Scripps, but on page 82 of a book published by the Detroit News in 1922, WWJ-The Detroit News, the station writers write "WWJ is not the initials of any name. It is a symbol. It was issued to the Detroit News by the government in connection with the licensing of this broadcasting plant."

In 1923, the Commerce Department realized that as more and more stations were applying for commercial licenses, it was not practical to have every station broadcast on the same two wavelengths. It was decided to set aside 81 frequencies, in 10 kHz steps, from 550 kHz to 1350 kHz, and each station would be assigned one frequency, no longer having to broadcast weather and government reports on a different frequency than entertainment. As a result, WWJ was moved to 517 meters (580 kHz). It was later re-assigned, during a re-alignment of stations by the new Federal Radio Commission in 1927-28, to fulltime operation on 920 kHz, and allowed to increase its power in stages, reaching 5,000 watts by the late 1930s.

On March 29, 1941 as part of the NARBA frequency reassignment, WWJ moved to 950 AM where it remains to this day. The programming throughout this time was focused on variety. During the 1940s it transmitted most of the NBC "Red" network schedule, as well as locally produced news, entertainment and music programming. After World War II, especially as television grew in household reach and popularity, music and regularly scheduled local news would make up a larger portion of its format as television eroded support for variety programming on radio and the Golden Age of Radio gradually ended. With the advent of FM radio and stereo broadcasting, WWJ dropped its middle-of-the-road music format in favor of all-news programming in 1973. The all-news format has served WWJ well over the past three and a half decades, enabling it to rank consistently among the Detroit area's most popular stations with adult listeners, occasionally finishing in first place in recent surveys of overall listenership.

In 1987, Federal Broadcasting Corporation, run by David Herriman, purchased WWJ and WJOI (now WXYT-FM) from the new owner of The Detroit News, Gannett, now the owner of The Detroit Free Press, which was required to sell the stations immediately by the Federal Communications Commission because of crossownership rules in effect at that time. On March 9, 1989, CBS bought the station, with its ownership being transferred to Infinity Broadcasting after CBS's 1996 acquisition of that group...although further corporate reorganization has put the station directly under the CBS corporate brand name once again in recent years. On January 13, 2000, the station once again increased its broadcast power to 50,000 watts during the daytime, with nighttime wattage matching in August 30, 2000 after new facilities in Southfield, Michigan, allowed the station to operate with 50,000 watts around the clock. (The new facilities are located less than a mile from the WKBD/WWJ studios.) In March, 2005, WWJ began offering a 24-hour live webcast. In August 2005, the station began offering podcasts of newsmakers, interviews, and some of the station's feature programming. The station also recently began broadcasting an HD, or high-definition, signal, which gives an AM broadcast FM-like quality.

Staff

Anchors

• Joe Donovan
• Roberta Jasina
• Greg Bowman
• Jayne Bower
• Bill Stevens
• Paul Snider
• Pat Vitale
• Marie Osborne
• Bill Rapada
• Mike Campbell
• Rob Sanford
• Michael Collins
• Jeff DeFran

Studio Traffic Reporters

• John Bailey
• Alisa Zee
• Lance Howard
• Terry T. Brown
• Liz Decker
• Jim Daniels
• Chuck Roberts
• Marty Bufalini

Chopper 950 Reporters

• Bill Szumanski
• Lance Howard

Weather

• Sonny Eliot
• Dr. Joe Sobel
• Bob Larson
• Jim Kosek
• Heather Zehr
• Carl Babinski
• Eric Wilhelm
• Dave Bowers
• Bernie Rayno
• Dean DeVore
• Kerry Schwindenhemmer

Sports

• Tony Ortiz
• Rob Pascoe
• Jeff Lesson
• Pete Spivak
• Ryan Wooley
• Jeff Riger

Speciality Reporter

• Ed Coury
• Matt Roush
• Murray Feldman
• John McElroy
• Tim Skubick
• Vickie Thomas
• Ron Dewey
• Florence Walton
• Jeff Gilbert
• Beth Fisher
• Pat Sweeting

Frequency & power changes

The following details the changes in frequency and power experienced by WWJ over the years. The data is from the Radio Service Bulletins that were issued periodically by the Commerce Department (the dates are the dates the particular bulletin was issued, not the date of the change):

• February 1, 1924, 517 meters (580 kHz) at 500 Watts.
• February 2, 1925, 352.7 meters (850 kHz) at 500 Watts.
• January 30, 1926, 352.7 meters (850 kHz) at 1,000 Watts.
• May 31, 1927, 374.8 meters (800 kHz) at 1,000 Watts.
• January 31, 1928, 352.7 meters (850 kHz) at 1,000 Watts.
• February 28, 1929 326 meters (920 kHz) at 1,000 Watts.

The station's power increased to 5,000 watts in 1937, and its frequency was permanently set at 950 kHz on March 29, 1941.

It reached its current 50,000 watts in 2000.

Sources

• Michiguide.com - WWJ History

External links

• Facility details for Facility ID WWJ ({{{2}}}) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
• {{{2}}} in Nielsen Audio's AM station database