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'WWJ (Newsradio 950)' is Detroit, Michigan's only 24-hour all-news radio station. Broadcasting at 950 kHz on the AM dial, 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.
In a sharp irony, while WWJ is the only commercial all news radio station in Michigan, co-owned WWJ-TV is the only CBS O&O without a local news presence.

Contents

Station timeline

Frequency & Power Changes

Current Personalities

Anchors

Traffic

Meteorologists

Sports

Reporters

Specialty Reporters

Other Off-Air Staff

Former Personalities

Sources

Notes

External links

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. 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.^[1] 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).^[2]
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 'W'illiam and 'J'ohn Scripps, who owned the News, 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 Federal licensing of this broadcasting plant."^[3]
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).
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, with music making up a larger portion of its format as television programming eroded support for variety programming and the Golden Age of Radio ended in 1962. 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.
In 1987, Federal Broadcasting Corporation, run by David Herriman, purchased WWJ and WJOI (now WKRK) from the new owner of The Detroit News, Gannett, 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. 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, allows the station to increase power to 50,000 watts during the nighttime. (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.

Frequency & Power Changes

The following details the changes in frequency and power experienced by WWJ over the next few 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)^[4]:

★ 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 Wattts.
The station's power increased to 5,000 watts in 1937.

Current Personalities

Anchors

★ 'Greg Bowman:' Mon-Fri 10am-3pm


★ 'Jayne Bower:' Mon-Fri 12pm-2pm, 3pm-6pm


★ 'Mike Campbell:' Sun 12pm-6pm


★ 'Michael Collins:' Weekend 12am-6am


★ 'Ron Dewey:' Weekend anchor 6am-12pm

★ 'Joe Donovan:' Mon-Fri 5am-10am


★ 'Roberta Jasina:' Mon-Fri 5am-10am


★ 'Marie Osborne:' Sat anchor, mid-day fill-in


★ ' Bill Rapada:' Sat-Sun 6pm-12am


★ 'Rob Sanford:' Mon-Fri 12am-5am


★ 'Paul Snider:' Mon-Fri 7pm-12am


★ 'Bill Stevens:' Mon-Fri 3pm-7pm


★ 'Pat Vitale:' Weekend/Fill-in

Traffic

★ 'John Bailey:' Mon-Fri 5am-10am


★ 'Terry T. Brown:' Weekend 6am-12pm


★ Jim Daniels


★ 'Lance Howard:' Traffic Chopper 3pm-7pm


★ 'Mike Lindeman:' Mon-Fri 12am-5am

★ 'Bill Zumanski:' Mon-Fri 6am-8:30am Chopper 950


★ 'Alisa Zee:' Mon-Fri 3pm-7pm

Meteorologists

★ 'Carl Babinski:' Mon-Fri 12am-5am & weekend weather

★ 'Dave Bowers:' Mon-Fri 3pm-7pm & 8pm-12am

★ 'Sonny Eliot:' Mon-Fri 4:18pm & 5:18pm

★ 'Jim Kosek:' Mon-Fri 10am-3pm

★ 'Bob Larson:' Mon-Fri 7pm

★ 'Bernie Rayno'

★ 'Dr. Joe Sobel:' Mon-Fri 5am-10am

★ 'Eric Wilhelm'

★ 'Heather Zehr:' Sun 6am-12pm

Sports

★ 'Jeff Defran'

★ 'Larry Henry:' Mon-Fri 5am-10am

★ 'Jeff Lesson:' Weekends

★ 'Tony Ortiz:' Mon-Fri 3pm-7pm & early evening

★ Mark Smith: Weekends

Reporters

★ 'Ron Dewey:' Street Reporter & weekend anchor

★ 'Karen Dinkins:' News Reporter

★ 'Beth Fisher:' Reporter

★ 'Jeff Gilbert:' Auto Beat Reporter

★ 'Pat Sweeting:' Health Reporter

★ 'Vickie Thomas:' City Beat Reporter

★ 'Florence Walton:' Reporter

Specialty Reporters

★ 'Ed Coury:' ''Wall Street Journal'' Business

★ 'Murray Feldman:' Consumer Reporter

★ 'John McElroy:' ''Automotive Insight'' Commentary

★ 'Matt Roush:' Technology Editor

★ 'Tim Skubick:' Lansing Bureau Chief

Other Off-Air Staff

★ 'Damara Anderson:' Producer

★ 'Rob Davidek:' News Director

★ 'Stephanie Davis:' Writer/Producer

★ 'Georgeann Herbert:' Program Director

★ 'Tim Kiska:' Editor-At-Large

★ 'Chrystal Knight:' Producer/Reporter

★ 'Gary Lundy:' Producer

★ 'Sandra McNeill:' Producer/Anchor/Reporter

★ 'Dorian Moore:' Editor

★ 'Bob Mundle:' Planning Editor

★ 'Scott Ryan:' Editor

★ 'Terri Lee Sylvester:' Producer/Editor

Former Personalities

★ Gregg Anthony (Former Morning Drive roving reporter, Now with WOIO-TV (CBS) General Assignment Reporter)

★ Jim Banner

★ Gary Baumgarten (now a reporter for CNN Radio)

★ Jim Berk

★ Brad Bianchi

★ Marty Bufalini (traffic)

★ Dana Cameron

★ Jim Chenevey (now with CBS News radio)

★ Dale Conquest (sports)

★ Tom Corbett

★ Liz Decker (traffic)

★ Dan Dickerson (currently the play-by-play announcer for the Detroit Tigers Radio Network)

★ Earle Dickinson

★ Bob Eccles (now heard on WEMU)

★ Dan Gutowsky (sports)

★ Rhonda Hart (Former traffic reporter, Died on June 4, 2007)

★ Ken Herrera (former afternoon anchor, later moved to WTMJ)

★ Rod Holden (traffic reporter, died in 2004)

★ Grant Hudson

★ Rachael Hunter (Former traffic reporter, now mornings on 99.5 WYCD)

★ Paul Keels (sports, now the play-by-play voice of Ohio State athletics)

★ Jon King

★ Cameron Knowles

★ Byron MacGregor

★ Tom Mazawey (sports)

★ Brian McFadden (business reporter)

★ Tommy McIntyre

★ Ian McLeod (business reporter)

★ Tom McNamara (longtime evening anchor, later moved to weekends; died December 13, 2003)

★ Chris Morgan

★ Don Patrick (business reporter)

★ Mike Payne (reporter)

★ Kerry Schwindenhammer (AccuWeather meteorologist)

★ Matt Shepard (sports, 1994-2001; now the play-by-play radio announcer for Michigan men's basketball)

★ Don Tanner (traffic)

★ Laura Teischer

★ Wes Vernon

★ Pam Woodley

★ Les Woodruff

Sources

★ Michiguide.com - WWJ History

Notes

1. http://earlyradiohistory.us/radiodst.htm
2. http://earlyradiohistory.us/buildbcb.htm#485
3. http://www.archive.org/details/thedetroitnews00detriala
4. http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/decdoc/radio_service_bulletins.html

External links

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