WABC (770 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to serve New York, New York. The flagship station of John Catsimatidis' Red Apple Media, it airs a conservative talk radio format branded as "Talkradio 77". WABC's studios are located in Red Apple Media headquarters on Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and its transmitter is in Lodi, New Jersey. Its 50,000-watt non-directional clear channel signal can be heard at night throughout much of the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada. It is the primary entry point for the Emergency Alert System in the New York metropolitan area and New Jersey. WABC simulcasts on WLIR-FM in Hampton Bays, New York, on eastern Long Island.
Owned and operated by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) for much of its history, it is one of the country's oldest radio stations. WABC began broadcasting in early October 1921, originally as WJZ in Newark, New Jersey. From 1943 through 2007, the station served as the flagship for the original ABC Radio Network (and its direct predecessor, the Blue Network) and ABC's radio news service. While WABC has been a talk radio station since 1982, the station broadcast a Top 40 music format from 1960 to 1982. Starting in the 1960s to 1978, WABC was not only the dominant contemporary music station in New York City, but was also among the most listened-to radio stations in North America, serving as a template for many other Top 40 stations around the country.
History WJZ Newark (1921–1923)
In November 1920, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company had established its first broadcasting station, KDKA, located in its plant at East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to promote the sale of radio receivers. This initial station proved successful, so the next year the company developed plans to set up additional stations in major population centers, including, in addition to the New York City area, WBZ, originally in Springfield, Massachusetts, and KYW, originally in Chicago, Illinois."List of stations broadcasting market reports (485 meters) and music. concerts, lectures, etc. (360 meters), (March 10, 1922)" , Radio Service Bulletin, March 1, 1922, pages 13-14.
On September 30, 1921, Westinghouse was issued a broadcasting authorization for a station with the randomly assigned call letters WJZ,It has been speculated that the call letters might have signified New Jersey; however, this appears to be a case of folk etymology, as there are no contemporary references to support this. located at the company's meter factory at Orange and Plane streets in Newark, New Jersey, and transmitting on a wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz).Limited Commercial license, serial No. 230, issued September 30, 1921, for a one-year term. The station had previously been issued a license in May 1921, but was not used for broadcasting at that time.
WJZ's studio and transmitter were initially housed in a shack located on a factory roof that was only accessible by ladder. The station later expanded to a larger studio on the factory's ground floor. The station began test transmissions around October 1, 1921, followed, beginning October 5, by broadcasts of the 1921 World Series baseball games. Announcer Thomas H. Cowan in Newark simply relayed the description phoned in from the Polo Grounds baseball field by Newark Sunday Call sportswriter Sandy Hunt. (At first station announcers were identified only by initials; in Cowan's case as "ACN", for "Announcer-Cowan-Newark".)"I looked and I listened" by Ben Cross, 1954, page 57.
The station soon expanded to feature a wide variety of live programming. A popular early feature was the "Man in the Moon" bedtime stories, written by Josephine Lawrence and read over the air by Bill McNeary (both were Newark Sunday Call employees). Beginning on November 27, 1921, a weekly 90-minute show presented by the Vincent Lopez band was aired.Pat Browne,The guide to United States popular culture. Popular Press, 2001, p.611.
When it began its broadcast service, WJZ was the only station in the New York City area transmitting on 360 meters. In mid-December 1921 station WDY, operated by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) from Roselle Park, New Jersey, began sharing the wavelength, with WJZ now broadcasting on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and WDY operating on the other three nights. This soon ended when WDY ceased operations in mid-February 1922 and was merged with WJZ, with RCA now assuming half of WJZ's expenses. However, within a few months a large number of additional broadcasting stations began operating on 360 meters, and WJZ was stubborn about having to share "its" wavelength. In May 1922 a proposed time-sharing agreement among 15 local stations assigned more than half of the available airtime to WJZ, but the station did not feel this was sufficient, which in turn led the Radio Broadcasting Society of America to petition that WJZ's license be canceled for being uncooperative."War Between Broadcasting Stations" , Radio Broadcast, October 1922, pages 457-458.
There were no formal standards in the United States defining broadcasting stations until December 1, 1921, when the Department of Commerce—which regulated radio at this time—issued a regulation specifying that stations making broadcasts intended for the general public now had to hold a Limited Commercial license that authorized operation on 360 or 485 meters. WJZ was one of a small number of stations that already met this standard at the time of its adoption. It was also the second-oldest of the two licenses previously issued for the state of New Jersey, preceded by RCA's WDY grant. However, WJZ was the first to go on the air, as WDY did not begin operations until 2 months after WJZ's debut.History of Radio to 1926 by Gleason L. Archer, 1938, page 220.
WJZ had difficulty convincing New York City performers – who were not paid – to make the trek to Newark, so on February 5, 1922, a more convenient remote studio was opened at the Waldorf-Astoria, located on Fifth Avenue and 34th Street."WJZ Opens New Studio" , National Electragist (Radio Service Supplement), March 1923, page 4. The American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) was unwilling to provide a telephone line to connect the Waldorf-Astoria studio to the Newark transmitter, so the link was instead made using specially prepared telegraph wires provided by Western Union. However, this expedient only provided marginal audio quality, and "the line was so noisy that when Newcomb Carleton, the president of Western Union, broadcast over it, his voice was completely drowned out".Sarnoff: An American Success by Carl Dreher, 1977, page 73.
On March 15, 1922, WJZ broadcast a studio performance of Mozart's Impresario, probably the first full-length opera broadcast in the New York City area. In October 1922, the station aired its second World Series, this time also feeding it to WGY in Schenectady, New York. Shortly after midnight on December 9, 1922, WJZ became the first broadcasting station confirmed to have been heard in Europe, consisting of a short program featuring greetings from the British consul in New York to British listeners and Vaughn De Leath singing her "Oliver Twist" song."Vaughn De Leath", interview by T. J. Dunham, Wireless Age, February 1923, page 27.
WJZ New York City (1923–1953) Takeover by RCA
May 15, 1923, saw a number of simultaneous major changes. Most notably, on this day the station moved from Newark to New York City, and the ownership was changed from joint Westinghouse-RCA responsibility to full control by RCA. WJZ moved to studios on the sixth floor of the building where the Aeolian Hall was located, and station publicity heralded the upgrade: "Located in the heart of the city's musical and theatrical district, where entertainment of the highest order is ever available, this station will offer to the American public the most elaborate radio programs yet attempted and with a degree of faithfulness in reproduction that marks the beginning of a new era in radio broadcasting.""New York's Super Station" , National Electragist, June 1923, pages 44, 46. This was also the day that the Department of Commerce implemented an expansion of the broadcast band, which now consisted of a range of transmitting frequencies from 550 to 1350 kHz, with WJZ assigned the sole use of 660. Finally, a sister station with the call letters of WJY operating on 740, was established, which shared the "Broadcast Central" Aeolian Hall studios, with WJZ providing more serious programming, and WJY's offerings considered more informal."Radio Broadcast Central" , Wireless Age, July 1923, pages 40-41.
Program logs from May 15 to December 31, 1923, show WJZ aired 3,426 programs, including 723 talks, 67 church services, 205 bedtime stories and 21 sports events.A Decade of Radio Advertising by Herman S. Hettinger, 1933, page 216. Many of the broadcasts were musical and ranged from Carnegie Hall and Aeolian Hall recitals to harmonica and banjo solos.This Thing Called Broadcasting by Alfred N. Goldsmith and Austin C. Lescarboura, 1930, pages 99-101.
As part of the move to Aeolian Hall, WJZ's transmitting antenna was constructed atop the building, but the location in the middle of New York City proved to be a poor choice. At the end of 1925, the station began operations from a new transmitter site located at Bound Brook, New Jersey. WJZ did not operate regularly at 50,000 watts until 1935.
Initial network operations
Westinghouse and RCA's original financing plan envisioned that profits from receiver sales would provide the funds for broadcast station operations, but this revenue soon became insufficient. In 1922, AT&T adopted a more practical approach, of selling airtime, which it called "toll broadcasting", in addition to connecting stations together using telephone lines to form a radio network that could broadcast programs simultaneously to multiple sites. This first radio network was called the "WEAF chain", named after the flagship AT&T station (later WNBC), located in New York City."Early History of Network Broadcasting (1923–1926)" , Report on Chain Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, May 1941, pages 5-6.
RCA, along with its "radio group" allies of Westinghouse and General Electric, responded by creating a small network of its own, centered on WJZ. Due to AT&T's interpretation of a patent-rights cross-licensing agreement, the telephone company claimed the sole right to sell airtime, so WJZ was not able to charge for advertising, and again there were technical limitations, since the network had to use inferior telegraph lines to interconnect its stations.
NBC-Blue network flagship years
In the summer of 1926, AT&T decided to withdraw from the broadcasting field, and sold its stations and network operations to RCA. Included with this sale was the right to sell advertising time, and access to telephone lines for radio network connections.A Tower in Babel by Erik Barnouw, 1966, page 285. The earlier network operations were reorganized as the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), with the primary network, now known as the NBC Red Network, originating from WEAF. A second network, known as the NBC Blue Network, with WJZ as the originating station, debuted on January 1, 1927. (The WJY sister station was quietly discontinued at this time.) In October 1927, WJZ moved into NBC studios still under construction at 711 Fifth Avenue. A month later, WEAF joined WJZ, and both were together under one roof. On November 11, 1928, as part of a general station reassignment produced by the Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, WJZ moved to 760 kHz."Revised list of broadcasting stations, by frequencies, effective 3 a. m., November 11, 1928, eastern standard time" , Second Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission (June 30, 1928), page 202.