KYW (AM)
_and_the_old_KYW_(AM)-KYW-TV_building.jpg)
- This article is about the radio station KYW. For the television station, see KYW-TV.
| File:Kyw1060.PNG | |
| Broadcast area | Philadelphia, PA |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 1060 (kHz) |
| Branding | "KYW Newsradio Ten-Sixty" |
| Programming | |
| Format | News |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | CBS Radio |
| History | |
First air date | November 11, 1921 (in Chicago, moved to Philadelphia in 1934) |
Former call signs | WRCV (1956-1965) KYW (1921-1956) |
Call sign meaning | None, randomly issued by the federal government |
| Technical information | |
| Class | A |
| ERP | 50,000 watts |
| Links | |
| Website | www.kyw1060.com |
KYW is a class A AM radio station on 1060 kHz licensed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. KYW is owned by the CBS Radio (formerly Infinity Broadcasting) unit of CBS Corporation, and has an all-news format. The station was one of the three original Westinghouse all-news stations, along with WINS in New York and KFWB in Los Angeles.
Its studios are located on Independence Mall in Center City (downtown) Philadelphia along with sister television stations KYW-TV and WPSG and fellow CBS Radio station WYSP. However, the station and WYSP will be taking over two floors of a building at 400 Market Street in Center City Philadelphia in 2007 when both KYW-TV and WPSG move to new studios in Center City in the old SmithKline building at 15th and Spring Garden Streets. Its transmitters are located in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania.
History
KYW began in 1921 in Chicago. It was jointly owned by Westinghouse and Commonwealth Edison. Westinghouse later bought out ComEd's share and became sole owner. In 1934, the assignment of clear channels took a frequency away from Illinois and gave it to Pennsylvania. Westinghouse then moved KYW to Philadelphia, where it has remained ever since. Shortly after the move, it became Philadelphia's NBC affiliate--an affiliation that lasted 20 years. In 1952, KYW acquired a television counterpart when Westinghouse bought WPTZ-TV, the nation's third commercial television station and NBC's second television affiliate.
From 1955 to 1965, Westinghouse and NBC swapped ownership of Westinghouse's Philadelphia cluster and Cleveland's NBC cluster of WTAM radio and WNBK-TV. Westinghouse changed the Cleveland cluster's callsigns to KYW-AM-FM-TV, and the Philadelphia cluster became WRCV-AM-TV. During this period, WRCV once again carried programs from NBC radio. In 1965, when the FCC reversed the swap, the KYW calls returned to Philadelphia while the Cleveland cluster became WKYC-AM-FM-TV. To this day, the KYW stations insist that they "moved" to Cleveland in 1956 and "returned" to Philadelphia in 1965. However, the two stations' facilities remained the same. [1]
On September 21, 1965, shortly after Westinghouse regained control of KYW, it once again dropped its NBC radio affiliation and converted the station into one of the first all-news stations in the country. It has been one of the highest-rated radio stations in the country since then and has been the market leader in Philadelphia for much of that time. Its television cousin took advantage of this popularity by incorporating a version of KYW radio's musical sounder into its news themes from 1991 until 2003. In addition, a television program entitled "KYW Newsradio 1060 This Morning" aired from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. on sister station WPSG in the early 2000s, adopting KYW's "clock" to television. The show was popular among local cable programming in its daypart, and in late 2004 was usurped (due in part to a new affiliation to Traffic Pulse) by KYW-TV/WPSG-TV staff and assumed the name "Wake UPNews".
Westinghouse bought CBS in 1995, a few months after its television cousin dropped its longtime NBC affiliation and became a CBS station as part of a deal between Westinghouse and CBS.
Features of KYW's format include business reports at :25 and :55 after every hour, "Wednesday's Child," showcasing orphaned children in need of a permanent family, by retired KYW-TV anchor Larry Kane, an "Opening Bell" show which airs at 9 a.m. each weekday morning and "Closing Bell" focuses on the day's planned activities on Wall Street, Reports from Fred Sherman at Sovereign Bank , "Traffic & Transit on the Twos" (traffic reports broadcast at :02, :12, :22, :32, :42:, and :52 after every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week), sport reports at :15 and :45 after each hour, and of course an assortment of local, national, and global headlines at the top and bottom of each hour, with news summaries at the quarter hours immediately before the sports report. AccuWeather provides local weather reports for the station's listenership.
KYW currently receives news reports and sound-bites, plus continuous coverage of breaking news from ABC Radio and CNN Radio as well as CBS Radio.
Several times the station has considered dropping the 8-second digital sample, but listeners disapproved.
KYW is currently the easternmost station in the United States whose callsign begins with the letter K.
Station Identifications
KYW Jingle
Every fifteen minutes, the famous jingle is played, and the top stories are recapped.
At the top of every hour, a recording of Dick Covington (who died in 2005; all other station imaging is done by Sean Caldwell) is played announcing the following information: "All news, all the time. From Independence Mall, this is news radio, KYW 1060 Philadelphia, a CBS Radio station, serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware."
At :30 past the hour, the recording is slightly different, announcing that KYW is "the news authority in Philadelphia."
At :15 and :45 past the hour, after the song is played, there is no recording. As the song fades out the following message is always read by the current anchor. "KYW Newsradio 1060 (sung).... You give us 22 minutes, we give you the world, This is KYW, the newscenter on your radio dial now heard worldwide at kyw1060.com." The anchor will then introduce his/her self and move directly into the stories. Usually, the current weather conditions on Independence Mall are announced.
Teletype
A noticeable 'trademark' of KYW is the constant sound of a teletype machines printing in the background. This sound plays constantly during times when the news is being read by a KYW reporter at the headquarters. During other times, particularly during commercials or taped news segments, including AccuWeather forecasts and the sports report, it is not heard. It is intended to allow the listener to immediately know the station that they are listening to and saves them from checking.
References
- ^ KYW Newsradio Station History, which details the evolution of the station from Chicago, to Philadelphia, to Cleveland and back to Philadelphia.