Stations

WOR


-22FB22: WOR signed on. Station location was on the 6th floor of Bamberger's Department Store, 131 Market Street, Newark, NJ. WOR shared time with stations WDT and WJY.


-24: WOR moved to 740, shared time with WJY.

 

-JL26:  WJY turns in license, WOR fulltime by default

    

-17JN27;  WOR assigned 710

    

-18SP27: WOR first New York station to carry the originating broadcast of the Columbia Broadcasting System.  WOR originated the broadcast.  WOR alternated carrying CBS programming with WABC of the Atlantic Broadcasting Company. To get a full time signal for CBS programming in New York, CBS offered to purchase WOR from Bamberger's in 1929.  WABC was priced cheaper.  WOR and CBS parted company in 1929.


-29: R.H. Macy & Co purchases Bamberger's. WOR part of the package.

   

-38: WOR experiments with fax transmission by transmitting, overnight, morning newspaper printed matter.

    

-FB40: experimental FM W2XOR on


-01FB41: WOR officially changes it's city of license to New York. Previously it had been Newark, NJ.


-41: W2XOR becomes W71NY. Bamberger broadcasting Service also owns WOR 9, which airs from atop New Amsterdam Roff Theater before moving to Television center on 67th St


-JA52 (50?): RH Macy merges it's Bamberger Broadcasting (WOR, WOR fm, WOR TV, WOIC TV DC and 25% of the Mutual Network) into Thomas H. Lee Enterprises' Don Lee Broadcasting System (KFRC, KHJ, 2 more radio stations & Mutual- Don Lee western network). Don Lee and Bamberger form General Teleradio (?).


-DC52: The Bamberger Broadcasting Service sells WOR to General TeleRadio, a subsidiary of General Tire and Rubber. General TeleRadio became RKO-General. 

    

-17MR58: WOR transmits first stereo recording heard on New York radio. One channel of the recording aired on WOR's "Radio New York" news program with John Scott; the other channel aired on WOR-TV, Channel 9's "Ted Steele Show". 


-59: WOR parts company with Mutual and becomes an independent station


-AP73: WOR fm becomes WXLO. Later jumps on disco craze


-AU81: WXLO becomes WRKS, Kiss FM. Emmis


-87: RKO-General is forced by the FCC to sell it's stations. WNAC tv 7 sold at a loss, others at equipment value. 


-89: Buckley Broadcasting purchases WOR 710


-WWOR owned by Greater Washington Radio

CKLW

-32: A group of Windsor businessmen start CBS station CKOK June 1 (or 2) on 540


-6NV33: CKOK and CJGC London merge as CKLW. The "LW" for London-Windsor. CKOK on 840


-34: London Free Press (CJGC) pulls out of CKLW partnership. CKLW moves to 1030 September 1


24SP35: CKLW switches from CBS to the Mutual network


-NV36: When Canadian Broadcasting Corp forms, CKLW is an affiliate, supplemental to Mutual


-29MR41: CKLW moved to 800. Owner: Western Ontario Broadcasting Co


-48: CKLW-FM bows at 93.9 on 250W


-50: CKLW drops affiliation when CBC opens its CBE. In later years, CKLW supplementary affiliate


-16SP54: Western Ontario Broadcasting starts CBC affiliate CKLW 9 Windsor. Majority owned (33.4%) by RKO Distributing Corporation of Canada Ltd (owned 92% by by RKO Teleradio Pictures). Essex Broadcasters, with 32.4% in turn owned by RKODCofC,L and 23 other partners


-56: RKO Distributing becomes primary owner through Western Ontario Broadcasting Co. Ltd. (33.4% RKO Distributing Corp. of Canada, 32.4% Essex Broadcasters). Essex an American subsidiary owned in direct proportion by all shareholders of the licensee company


-63: RKO gains 100% of CKLW-AM-FM and TV


-SP66: CKLW Top 40 as "Boss Radio"


-24JL70: because of CRTC foreign ownership rules, Western Ontario Broadcasting Co. Ltd. (100% owned by RKO Distribution Corp. of Canada Ltd., itself 100% owned by RKO General Inc., in turn 100% owned by General Tire & Rubber Co. of Akron, Ohio) forced to sell CKLW AM & FM to Baton Broadcasting (CKLW Radio Broadcasting Ltd.). 

CKLW-TV sold to Baton (75%) and the CBC (25%).


-74: CKLW shifted from Boss Rock to Adult Top 40


-01SP75: CBC acquires all of CKLW 9


-77: CKLW becames"adult contemporary"


-78: CKLW tv 9 becomes all-CBC CBET


-10SP82: CKLW began AM stereo testing in conjunction with GM Delco, becoming the first Canadian AM station to operate in stereo


-06AP84: CKLW switched to adult standards. CKLW Radio Broadcasting Ltd. changed its name to Russwood Broadcasting (still owned by Baton).


-JA85: CRTC approved sale CKLW/CFXX-FM to CUC Ltd. (50%), Keith Campbell (20%), Robert O'Brien (19%), Michael Rinaldo through Platoon Communications Corp. (6%) and Denis Beallor (5%). Corporate name remained Russwood Broadcasting.


-86: Russwood Broadcasting becomes Amicus Broadcasting Ltd.


-03MR88: CRTC approves transfer of effective control of Amicus Communications, through purchase from Keith Campbell and his group over a period of several months.


-91: CKLW 9 becomes an NBC affiliate


-93: CHUM Ltd. purchases CKLW AM/FM from Amicus (Trillium Cable Communications division of CUC Broadcasting Ltd.). 

CHUM already owned Windsor's two other private stations: CKWW/CIMX.

On March 1, at 12 a.m., CKLW and CKWW swapped formats. CKLW switched from adult standards to news-talk

KHJ

"Kindness, Happiness and Joy"

-13AP22: KHJ 930 licensed to LA Times. Second radio station on air in Los Angeles, was called "The Times Radiophone."


-31: Earl C Anthony's W6XS Gardena on


-38: Don Lee's W6XAO channel 2 on


-40: W6XAO moves to Mt Lee


-MR41: K45LA on, later to become KRTH 101.1 FM


-45: W6XS gets CP


-25AU48: KFI on, initially NBC


-OC48: KFI-TV started


-50: KFI goes commercial


-51: RKO buys KFI tv 9 for $2.5M. KTSL sold to CBS


-62: license renewal for KHJ tv 9 challenged


-JA86: KHJ changed to KRTH-AM (since FM station KRTH-FM). 

Both stations sold to Beasley, which in turn sold the AM station to Liberman Broadcasting (they turned the former KHJ into KKHJ, which became known as "La Ranchera").


-90: KHJ 9 last RKO general station, KHJ sold to Disney


-94: KRTH went to Infinity


-95: Young buys KCAL


-15MR2K: classic call letters KHJ once again returned to Los Angeles

WHCT

Channel 18 first went on the air on August 4, 1954 as WGTH-TV (Channel 71), a DuMont/ABC affiliate owned by The Hartford Times newspaper. 

The station was sold to the CBS Television Network, in 1955. 

The new station on Channel 18 (now named WHCT)  swapped network affiliations with Channel 8, WNHC-TV (Now WTNH) in New Haven, CT to become the exclusive CBS owned and operated affiliate for the Hartford market in 1956.  

The CBS affiliation did not last long. One reason was the lack of signal parity with early UHF transmitters and converters. The other reason was a new VHF station had taken up residence in Hartford. Channel 3 WTIC-TV (now WFSB), owned by the Travelers Insurance Corporation, went on the air in 1957 as an Independent station. It did not take long for William Paley to realize it made good business sense to have his product on a powerful VHF station (albeit one that CBS did not own) than a weak, money-bleeding UHF station.  

By 1959, Channel 3 was the CBS outlet in Connecticut, and Channel 18 was sold to the General Tire Corporation, owners of WNAC in Boston and WOR in New York.


IT began scrambling programming on 29 June 1962. Not unlike HBO, WHCT would show movies that had recently completed their theater runs, as well as sporting events from Madison Square Garden (such N.Y. Rangers hockey, and boxing). The station's signal would be scrambled, and subscribers would need a converter to unscramble. 

Word has it the converter device included some type of coin box that the subscriber had  to feed change into to unscramble the signal. The experiment failed mainly because it was too far ahead of its' time and also due to the fact that the scrambling system (Zenith's Phonevision) did not work in color.

The experiment was abandoned in 31 January 1969. RKO  continued to operate the station as a limited hour (on the air in the late afternoon, off the air by late night) independent.  

The programming fare during this period included New York Yankees Baseball from WPIX, Celtics & Bruins telecasts from WSMW & WSBK as well as reruns like "Lassie," "My Favorite Martian," old movies and cartoons. Typical standard, low-profit stuff.


RKO bailed out in '72, and gave the station to Dr. Eugene Scott and his Faith Center crew as a gift. Initially, the change was not readily apparent, as the station continued pumping out the requisite Yankee telecasts, reruns and old flicks. The station also carried World Football League games in 1974 and road games of the WHA's New England Whalers in 1977.


Eventually, Dr. Gene became the omnipresent image as the 70's faded into the '80's, just as Channel 18 faded from screens in the Hartford-New Haven Springfield area. Channel 18's transmitter was vandalized in 1979, requiring the station to transmit as a low-power station in its final years under the good doctor. It was a dark time for Channel 18, but darker times were soon to come. To fill the independent TV breach came cable TV, offering great indy's like WSBK, WNEW, WPIX, WTBS, and 2 startups in the Hartford market;

WTXX, Channel 20 in Waterbury, CT (formerly a weak NBC affiliate, WATR, renowned for "My Little Margie" reruns and Jets football), and WTIC-TV, Channel 61, soon to become a Fox affiliate.


In 1985, the good Dr. Gene, feeling the IRS & FCC pinch, put Channel 18 up for "distress" sale. The FCC stipulated the station be sold to a group of minority ownership. The FCC approved the sale to a limited partnership "Astroline Communications," a group headed by former WMJX-FM Sales Manager Richard Ramirez and several backers. 

One of the applicants for the Channel 18 license, Alan Sherburg, a computer consultant from Rocky Hill, CT, felt the license granting was a farce. He claimed the backers were not a minority group at all, that allegedly Ramirez was simply a figurehead "minority" for the purpose of allowing these backers to own the station, and as such, the station's ownership was not in the community's interest as defined by the FCC distress sale mandate. He pursued his case in the federal courts for the next 5 years, which became a massive  financial drain on the fledgling station's resources, as attorneys spent time fighting for the station's right to operate (Shurberg even argued his case on the infamous "Morton Downey Jr. Show" in 1989). 


The new, revamped WHCT was off to an inauspicious start. The station returned to the

air -and many Hartford area cable systems- in late September 1985, with a diet of movies, reruns, and bottom-of-the-barrel syndicated programs not wanted by WTXX & WTIC. This included such '70's chestnuts as "The Brady Bunch," "Odd Couple," "Columbo,"

"MacMillan & Wife," "Best of Saturday Night Live," "Dallas," "Mork & Mindy" and "SCTV." This was rounded  out by genuine "bottom-of-the-barrel" programming such as "Julia", "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", and the soon-to-be-put-out-pasture "Merv Griffin Show."


The bitter end nearly came in the Spring of 1986, as several employees were let go amid the mountains of start-up debt. However, WHCT received an unlikely stay of execution. Most improbably, the station signed a 3 year agreement to televise 20 road games per season of the NHL's Hartford Whalers.  

At the time, the Whalers were enjoying their greatest bout of success, having taken the eventual Stanley Cup winning Montreal Canadians through a grueling 7-game quarterfinal series which the Whalers missed winning by one goal (Hell, the city of Hartford even had a parade for them!). WHCT thought that burgeoning Whaler mania would be their ticket to the promised land.

Instead, the station wound up floundered on the beach. The Whalers never lived up to the promise shown by their 1986 playoff run.

 

Despite this, the Whalers identification brought the station some needed local ad revenue.  Most of the local advertising was home grown, as the station opened their facilities, at a minimum of cost to advertisers, to produce local spots. The station produced ads for Hartford-area car dealerships (including one ad with baseball slugger Reggie Jackson in 1987), furniture stores, yuppie restaurants, menswear stores, and even the Double A baseball New Britain Red Sox. What money was gained from these spots was plowed back into producing local programming. 

This included a daily, live Catholic mass, a weekly job search program, "Classified 18", telecasts of selected University of Hartford Hawks NCAA Basketball games, and a live, in-studio, call-in post-game show for Hartford Whalers telecasts, hosted by local rock DJ and sports expert, Irv Goldfarb.


Despite all this, the station was still ailing financially, and programming distributors were not getting paid. To stave off the repo man, the station began regularly airing paid programming for whoever would pony up; skin care items, weight loss pills, Home Shopping Network and even Jim & Tammy Bakker (The station showed the "PTL Club" twice a day during the Bakker's famous downfall in 1987).   


By 1989, WHCT's creditors had forced the station into an involuntary bankruptcy, which forced it to refrain from regular programming, except for a  few hours at night for Columbo & Kojak reruns, a movie or a Whaler game (The Whalers contract was not renewed in 1990, and the station started carrying Boston Celtics games from WFXT instead). The  rest of the station's schedule was lousy with paid programming and Home Shopping Network for

the next 3 years to repay their debts. 

Unfortunately, the debt repayment didn't happen fast enough to satisfy the creditors or the Federal Bankruptcy court. In April 1991, the Federal Bankruptcy court ordered the station to sign off and the equipment repossessed to satisfy the creditor's demands. Channel 18 remained dark for the next 5 years, until the license was purchased by the owners of Channel 26, WHPX, a New London, CT PAX affiliate. The station was returned  to the airwaves in the spring of 1996, showing a steady stream of paid programming and shopping channel fare, except for a season of Red Sox baseball in 1998. 

Many local cable companies never bothered to restore the station to their systems (including Hartford). 

The station upgraded from 500,000 watts to 3 Million watts in March 1987 

WRKO

WRKO is Boston's third licensed radio station, originally called WNAC.


31JN22: WNAC goes the air at 1199 kHz (250 meters). Owned by John Shepard III, of Shepard Department Stores. Operated out of one of the Shepard stores.


15SP22: WNAC licensed.  Frequency moved to 833 kHz.


24: Frequency changes to 1080 kHz


25: WNAC sister station, WNAB, bows on 1200


04FB25: Frequency changes to 1070 kHz


27: Frequency changes to 850 kHz


JN27: WBIS on


31AU27: WNAB becomes WASN


18SP27: WNAC becomes one of the original 16 CBS network stations


28: Frequency changes to 650 kHz.


FB28: WNAC combines with WBIS, also owned by John Shepard


11NV28: As part of Federal Radio Commission's frequency re-allocation, WNAC moves to 1230.


28MR29: WNAC moves transmitter to Quincy. WNAC combines with sister station WBIS on 1230


25MY30: WNAC forms Yankee Network and signs WNBH/New Bedford as first affiliate


MR34: WNAC begins "Yankee Network News" (Yankee News Service), a 15-minute, hourly newscast


34: WBIS deleted


05AU36: Colonial Network is formed, based at WAAB, 1410  Boston


27SP36: WNAC loses its CBS affiliation and briefly becomes an NBC Red affiliate


26JA37: The station's licensee name is changed to Yankee Network, Inc.


26JA37: WNAC and WAAB ownership consolidated under The Yankee Network, Inc


19DC37: WLAW (owned by the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune) signs on.


JA1938: WNAC runs some NBC Red Network and Mutual Radio, as well as Yankee Network


27MY39: Shepard stores begins W1XOJ, a 20,000 watt FM station listed as "The Yankee Network", in Paxton, MA on 43.0 megaHertz. Calls become WEOD.


29AP41: W1XOJ becomes WGTR (General Tire & Rubber), broadcasting 8AM to midnight on 44.3 mHz, with 31,000 watts.


NV43: W43B Paxton changes to WGTR  (as in General Tire & Rubber), and moves to 103.1 mHz


29FB44: Station purchased by Winter Street Corporation, owners of the Yankee Network, based in Boston


48: WGTR moves to 99.1 mHz


21MY48: WNAC-TV 7 goes on the air


OC48: WGTR changes to WNAC-FM, moving to 98.5 mHz, with 10,000 watts.


49: WNAC joins Mutual Radio Network


02MY51: Following death of Mr. Shepard (6-11-50), stations sold to Thomas S. Lee Enterprises, Inc.


7-24-52: Stations purchased by General Teleradio, Inc.


6-17-1953: WNAC purchases WLAW/Lawrence, Massachusetts, and moves WLAW to 1260 kHz. WNAC moves to 680. WLAW FM license (93.7) returned. 1260 license was sold to WVDA, which became WEZE


12DC55: Stations purchased by RKO Pictures, Inc, as RKO Teleradio


JA57: RKO Teleradio is renamed RKO General


60: WNAC-FM/98.5 became WRKO-FM, simulcasting WNAC full-time


26FB67: WNAC ends Yankee-(news) Network


13MR67: WNAC becomes WRKO, and changes format to Top 40.


01JA69: WRKO-FM upgrades to stereo, becoming WROR, breaking away completely from WRKO. 


01MY82: WNAC 7 in Boston was first, becomes New England Television's WNEV 


90: WNEV owner buys radio WHDH, and forms WHDH 7


91: WRKO/ WROR sold to Atlantic Ventures, which became American Radio Systems and merged into CBS. WROR 98.5 becomes WBMX


92: WHDH radio sold, now WEEI


JN93: WHDH TV 7 sold to Ed Asnin


02JA94: WHDH tv & drops CBS for NBC


AU98: WRKO 680 sold to Entercom