WOWO

Infobox Radio Station
name = WOWO


area = Fort Wayne, Indiana
branding =
slogan =
airdate = March 31, 1925
frequency = 1190 (kHz)
format = News/Talk
power = 50,000 watts (daytime)
9,800 watts (nighttime)
erp =
class = B
owner = Federated Media
website = [http://www.wowo.com www.wowo.com]
callsign_meaning = "(Fort) Wayne Offers Wonderful Opportunities" "(unofficial, was randomly assigned)"

Located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, WOWO is an independent news/talk radio station transmitting on 1190 kHz at 50,000 watts during the daylight hours and 9,800 watts during the nighttime hours. WOWO, whose call letters are affectionately pronounced as a two-syllable word rhyming with go-go, has been broadcasting on various AM frequencies since March 31, 1925 and on 1190 kHz since March 29, 1941. WOWO was one of the first radio stations to broadcast in the Fort Wayne area. In 1930, WOWO was the first radio station in the world to broadcast a live basketball game. It is also considered to be the first station to broadcast live Indiana high school sports events and the first station to be wholly owned by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. WOWO was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting from 1936 to 1982. The WOWO transmitter and its three towers are located along U.S. Highway 24 in Roanoke, Indiana, midway between Fort Wayne and Huntington.

Despite its sale by Westinghouse in 1982, WOWO still uses the distinctive Group W typeface for the call letters in its white on PF-152 red logo.

History

Established in 1925, WOWO began broadcasting at 500 watts of power on 1320 kHz on March 31, 1925 and was owned by Chester Keen of Main Auto Supply Company. The station's callsign was chosen to start with the letter "W" as required by the F.C.C. for all stations in the United States at the time. During the 1920s, the FCC permitted either three- or four-letter callsigns, with three-letter call signs being preferred for brevity. By choosing WOWO for easy pronunciation as a two-syllable word, in some measure WOWO had a callsign that exhibited even more brevity than even the three-letter callsigns. The WOWO callsign was later backfilled as a tongue-in-cheek acronym: "Wayne Offers Wonderful Opportunities". In 1927, WOWO was made a pioneer station of CBS radio network and remained a CBS affiliate until 1956.

In 1928, Keen sold WOWO to Fred Zieg. In 1929, Zieg received FCC approval to move WOWO to 1160 kHz with a power of 10,000 watts and establish WGL on WOWO's former 1320 kHz. Until WOWO's purchase by Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1936, Zieg managed the advertising sales of both WOWO and WGL through WOWO-WGL Sales Service, Inc.

On July 4, 1929, the station's studio building caught fire. No casualties were reported, and operations were moved to a nearby location. Amazingly enough, the station's large pipe organ—a familiar sound on the station—was not damaged in the blaze. The WOWO pipe organ was later relocated to Gospel Temple in Fort Wayne.

During August 1936, WOWO was acquired by Westinghouse Broadcasting as its first owned and operated radio station. Westinghouse built new studios for WOWO at 925 South Harrison Street in Fort Wayne, which were completed on May 1, 1937. On that same date WOWO joined the NBC Blue radio network, while maintaining its CBS network affiliation, as multiple network affiliations were common for NBC-Blue affiliates. On March 29, 1941 Westinghouse completed the FCC licensing of WOWO's famous clear-channel broadcasting on 1190 kHz. During and after World War II, these clear-channel broadcasts made WOWO a popular radio super-station of sorts throughout the eastern United States. Although there were other radio stations in the eastern United States broadcasting on 1190 kHz during daylight hours, they were required by the FCC either to cease broadcasting at sunset or to reduce their transmitted power at sunset to make way for WOWO's clear-channel signal. WOWO's clear-channel license and resulting large audience permitted various owners over the years to consider WOWO their flagship station.

On April 30, 1952, WOWO's studio and offices were relocated to the upper floors of 128 West Washington Blvd. It was here that the station began their famous "fire-escape" weather forecasts, involving obtaining weather conditions from the fire escape ledge. In 1977, WOWO's studios moved to the fourth floor of the Central Building at 203 West Wayne Street in Fort Wayne, where it would remain for the next fifteen years. When the station relocated to the Central Building, the old fire escape was cut into small pieces, encapsulated in lucite and distributed as a promotional paper weight.

Programming for the station changed several times. After dropping their network affiliations in 1956, the station played modern (for the time) music. During its heyday, WOWO was one of North America's most listened-to Top 40 music stations. WOWO continued playing the hits until 1988, when the station resumed playing oldies. In 1992 the format changed to adult contemporary, and then in 1996, the station switched to a news-talk format which remains to this day.

WOWO as a former clear-channel

From 1941 to 1995 WOWO was well-known, in both Indiana and areas to the east, as one of the clear-channel AM stations. This was due to the station broadcasting continuously at 50,000 watts of power both during daylight and nighttime hours. From sunset to sunrise, WOWO's directional antennas were configured to broadcast to the eastern United States. These directional nighttime broadcasts were branded as WOWO's Nighttime Skywave Service, the "voice of a thousand Main Streets". During the 1970s, the station's hourly ID (required by the FCC) stated: "50,000 watts on 1190, WOWO, Fort Wayne, Group W, Westinghouse Broadcasting."

WOWO's clear-channel license permitted WOWO's radio personalities to gain some degree of fame throughout the eastern United States. Announcer Bob Sievers, Farm Director, commentator and folk-philosopher Jay Gould, News Director Dugan Fry, meteorologist Earl Finckle, the "In a Little Red Barn (on a farm down in Indiana)" de facto theme song of WOWO, the Penny Pitch charity fund raisers, sports director Bob Chase's Komet Hockey broadcasts, the weather-reports from WOWO's personnel taking a smoking break out on their studio's "world-famous fire escape", and husband-wife hosts of The Little Red Barn Show, Sam and Nancy DeVincent, all were listened to by a total of millions of people from the Great Lakes to the United States' East Coast over the years from the 1940s to the 1990s. Other memorable on-air personalities include Ron Gregory, Chris Roberts, Jack Underwood and Carol Ford.

Because WOWO's Nighttime Skywave Service caused WLIB, also 1190 kHz, in New York City to cease broadcasting at sunset each day and resume broadcasting at sunrise, Inner Cities Broadcasting bought WOWO in 1994 so that they could transfer WOWO's FCC clear-channel license to WLIB, owned by Inner Cities Broadcasting. This reduced WOWO's potential audience—referred to as WOWOland—from much of the eastern United States to a much smaller local region in northern Indiana, northwestern Ohio, and south-central Michigan. Before the power reduction, when WLIB signed off at night, WOWO's air signal came booming through the speakers into the WLIB air studio.

WOWO Today

WOWO currently has studios in a broadcast complex on Maples Road, on the south side of Fort Wayne. It still has a directional transmitter on U.S. Highway 24, just west of Roanoke, Indiana. WOWO was the first Fort Wayne station to transmit in AM stereo; it later became the first Fort Wayne AM station to transmit in high definition digital sound. The station streams its programs over the Internet at www.wowo.com. [http://wowo.com] The current format of news and talk includes this daily (Monday through Friday) lineup:
*Fort Wayne's Morning News, hosted by Charly Butcher, 5 to 9 a.m.
*Glenn Beck Program, 9:06 to 11:57 a.m.
*Rush Limbaugh Program, 12:06 p.m. to 2:57 p.m.
*Pat White Show, 3:10 p.m. to 6 p.m.
*Sean Hannity, 6:06 p.m. to 9 p.m.
*Michael Savage, 9:06 p.m. to 12 a.m.
*Coast to Coast AM, 12 a.m. to 5 a.m.

There are newscasts every 30 minutes, at the top and bottom of the hour, featuring local, national, and international reports. Amazingly, the newscasts begin with prerecorded introductions by longtime WOWO announcer Bob Sievers, who turned 90 in August 2007. (Seivers died on September 4, 2007.) [http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/LOCAL/709040426] Mitch Craig also does station imaging. WOWO utilizes ABC and FOX news services, as well as the Associated Press. In 2006, WOWO became a partner with Indiana's NewsCenter, which produces newscasts for two Fort Wayne television stations, WPTA-TV (Channel 21) and WISE-TV (Channel 33). There are regular weather reports from The Weather Channel, as well as weather bulletins from the National Weather Service. WOWO also broadcasts the Fort Wayne Komets hockey games and the Indianapolis Colts football games. Bob Chase, who turned 82 on January 22, 2008 [http://www.wowo.com/Features/BobChaseCommentaries/tabid/81/Default.aspx] , continues to do many of WOWO's sports reports and has done play-by-play for the Komets, beginning in 1952.

External links