WOR (710 kHz) is a 50,000 watt class A clear-channel, AM station licensed to New York City, and is owned by iHeartMedia. Its studios are located in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan at the former AT&T Building, with its transmitter in Rutherford, New Jersey. The station airs a mix of local and syndicated talk radio shows, primarily from co-owned Premiere Networks, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, and Coast to Coast AM; all three of these programs previously aired on WABC, WOR's competitor, before iHeartMedia purchased WOR and moved them there.
Since 2016, WOR serves as the New York affiliate station for NBC News Radio. It also serves as the flagship station for the New York Mets and Rutgers University's football and men's basketball teams.
WOR is one of the oldest radio stations in New York, with a three-letter call sign indicating the station dates from the 1920s.
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History
WOR began broadcasting on February 22, 1922, using a 500-watt transmitter on 360 meters (833 kHz) from Bamberger's Department store in Newark, New Jersey. The station's first broadcast was made with a home made microphone which was a megaphone attached to a telephone transmitter, while Al Jolson's "April Showers" was played. Bamberger's desire to sell radio sets explains why the department store put the station on the air. The WOR call sign was reissued from the U.S. maritime radio service. The call letters have no meaning, being sequentially assigned. They had previously been authorized for use by the ship SS California, owned by the Orient Lines.
The station initially operated limited hours, sharing time with two other stations, WDT and WJY, which also operated on 833 kHz. WOR changed frequency to 740 kHz in June 1923 and shared time with WJY until July 1926, when WJY signed off for good and WOR received full use of the frequency. In December 1924, WOR acquired a studio in Manhattan, to originate many of its programs, so that stars of the day based in New York would have better access to the station. On June 17, 1927, as a result of General Order 40, WOR moved to 710 kHz, the channel it currently occupies. Unlike most stations of that era, it was not required to change its dial position due to the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement. Later in 1926, WOR moved from its original New York City studio on the 9th floor of Chickering Hall at 27 West 57th Street to 1440 Broadway, two blocks from Times Square.
WOR was first a charter member of the CBS Radio Network, being one of the 16 stations that aired the first CBS network program on September 18, 1927. In partnership with Chicago radio station WGN and Cincinnati radio station WLW, WOR formed the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1934 and became its New York flagship station. Mutual was one of the "Big Four" national radio networks in the United States during the 1930s-1980s. In 1941, the station changed its city of license from Newark to New York City. However, for all intents and purposes it had been a New York City station since its early days, and had actually moved its studios across the Hudson two years after it signed on.
In 1957, WOR ended its relationship with Mutual and became an independent station, with Mutual's New York outlet becoming WAAT in Newark (today WNYM Hackensack NJ). But WOR continued to carry Mutual's "Top of the News" with Fulton Lewis for 15 minutes each evening, Monday to Friday at 7:00 p.m. for several more years. For a few years in the late-1950s, WOR aired selected St. Louis Cardinals baseball games sponsored by Budweiser due to the departures of the Dodgers and Giants from New York to California.
In 1948, WOR put an FM radio station on the air as WOR-FM. WOR had been experimenting with FM broadcasts as W2XWI from its Carteret, New Jersey transmitter site from 1938. Today that station is 98.7 WEPN-FM. From 1952 to the late seventies the station was owned by RKO General Broadcasting. In 1949, WOR started a sister TV station, WOR-TV, on channel 9. This station became WWOR-TV after it and 710 WOR were sold to separate companies in 1987 (due to an FCC regulation in effect then that forbade TV and radio stations in the same cities but with different owners from sharing the same call letters).
From the 1930s to the early 1980s, WOR was described as a full-service station, featuring a mix of music, talk and news. There was an emphasis on news reports and talk programs, but music was played also, usually a blend of pop standards and adult contemporary tunes. WOR played several songs per hour weekday mornings from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and again afternoons from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. WOR also featured music on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. In ratings reports, WOR was classified as a MOR/Talk station rather than a News/Talk station until 1984. From 1983 to about 1985, WOR gradually stopped playing music altogether, evolving into its current talk format. Past notable hosts were Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald, Arlene Francis, Patricia McCann, Long John Nebel, Bernard Meltzer, Barry Farber, Jean Shepherd, Bob and Ray, Jack O'Brian, Bob Grant and Gene Klavan. From April 15, 1945, to March 21, 1963, newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen and her husband Dick Kollmar (1910-1971) co-hosted a late morning show on WOR called Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick.
The station was known for its detailed, 15-minute news reports on the hour. Noted newsmen such as Henry Gladstone, Harry Hennessey, John Wingate, Lyle Vann, Peter Roberts, and Roger Skibenes were the backbone of the news department. WOR introduced live, on-air, helicopter traffic reports with pilot reporters "Fearless" Fred Feldman and later George Meade. Unfortunately, on January 10, 1969, fill-in pilot/reporter Frank McDermott died when the WOR helicopter crashed into an apartment building in Astoria, Queens as he was broadcasting a traffic update. The building caught fire and McDermott's body was found nearby.
WOR's most renowned program was its morning show Rambling with Gambling, which aired continuously from March 1925 to September 2000 across three generations of hosts: John B. Gambling, his son John A. Gambling, and his grandson John R. Gambling. After John R. Gambling's edition of the show was dropped, he moved to WABC, where he hosted a late-morning show until January 2008. He returned to WOR mornings in May 2008. Although never a favorite of young listeners, WOR was this group's radio station of record in the New York metropolitan area during bad winter weather. Students of all ages dialed up 710 AM on their radios as the Gamblings dutifully announced a comprehensive list of school closings for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, in strict alphabetical order. Currently, Gambling hosts middays on 970 WNYM, after retiring from WOR in December 2013.
WOR's original transmitter location was in Carteret, NJ using two steel lattice towers and a steel cable as a third radiating element. The cable hung from a catenary connected to the top of each of the towers. This created a lopsided figure-8 pattern intended to cover both the NY and Philadelphia markets, making WOR the first 50,000 Watt directional station in the US. Over the years, construction affected WOR's signal strength and WOR sought a new location. Circa 1966, the FCC issued a construction permit for WOR's new and current location in Lyndhurst, NJ. The current location features three full half-wave (692 feet) guyed antennas in a triangular array. WOR is within one mile of both WLIB and WINS. Thus each WOR tower hosts AM detuning apparatus to prevent adverse distortion of WINS and WLIB radiation patterns. Built on hydraulic landfill, the site provides excellent ground conductivity for daytime groundwave radiation. At night when conditions are favorable, WOR can occasionally be heard in parts of Europe and Africa. It shares Class A status on 710 kHz with KIRO (AM) in Seattle, Washington, KEEL in Shreveport, Louisiana and WAQI in Miami, Florida and operates 24 hours per day. WOR must protect the radiation pattern of these stations since its transmitter in Lyndhurst, NJ was constructed circa 1968, well after these other 50,000 Watt stations began operations. WOR is the only New York City AM station to have retained its original three-letter call sign, the oldest continually used call letters in the New York City area.
On April 30, 2005, WOR moved its offices and studios from 1440 Broadway at 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan where it had been based for 79 years to a new facility at 111 Broadway near Wall Street in the Financial District, Manhattan before moving to the Avenue of The Americas in Tribeca where it is currently headquartered.
On August 13, 2012, it was announced that WOR was to be purchased by Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia), pending FCC approval. A local marketing agreement began on August 15, 2012. On December 20, 2012, the day Clear Channel officially took ownership of the station, The Dr. Joy Browne Show, The Gov. David Paterson Show, and The Mike Huckabee Show were removed from the WOR program schedule.
On January 2, 2013, WOR added former WABC weekend host Mark Simone to its weekday morning line up. WOR now offers ten hours of live and local programming on weekdays, with the rest of the day offering syndicated programs. Along with the change in programming came the slogan "New York's Only Live and Local News and Conversation." In late 2014, former WNBC sportscaster Len Berman and Tampa Bay Area radio host Todd Schnitt were hired as the station's morning hosts, after WOR cancelled the hot talk Elliot in the Morning Show, simulcast from iHeart Alternative Rock station WWDC (FM) in Washington, D.C.. Schnitt left WOR in October 2017, leaving Berman running the morning show.
On January 1, 2014, both the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity shows were transferred from rival Talk Radio station 770 WABC, owned by Cumulus Media. Since Premiere Networks, owned by iHeartMedia, syndicates both popular shows, WOR wanted them to boost its ratings.
On November 4, 2013, WOR and the New York Mets announced the team's games will be broadcast on 710 AM, as well as advertised on all local Clear Channel radio stations, beginning with the 2014 baseball season. The station also broadcasts The WOR Sports Zone, hosted by Pete McCarthy which airs from immediately before and after Mets games. When the team is idle, McCarthy hosts a sports show weeknights from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. followed by syndicated family finances radio host Dave Ramsey.
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WOR Radio Network
WOR was once the flagship station of the now-defunct WOR Radio Network. The network distributed nationally syndicated programming, all from the WOR studios at 111 Broadway in New York. Following the sale of WOR to Clear Channel Communications, what was left of the WOR Radio Network was folded into Premiere Networks, Clear Channel's syndication wing.
Past WOR personalities
Past notable WOR program hosts and newscasters included these personalities.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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