WLAC (1510 AM) branded "TalkRadio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC", is a commercial radio station in Nashville, Tennessee. Owned by iHeartMedia, it broadcasts a talk radio format. The station's studios are in Nashville's Music Row district.
WLAC is a clear-channel station, it operates around the clock at 50,000 watts, the highest power authorized for AM stations in the United States. A single tower radiates the transmitter's full power during the day to most of Middle Tennessee. At night, it uses a directional pattern that limits its signal toward the west to originally protect KGA in Spokane (which has since downgraded its night signal) and to the northeast to protect WMEX in Boston. It has a three-tower array in the city's Northside neighborhood. WLAC broadcasts an HD Radio signal using the in-band on-channel standard. Programming is simulcast over a digital subchannel of 97.9 WSIX-FM and on FM translator W252CM at 98.3 FM.
Programming WLAC carries nationally syndicated conservative talk shows, including The Glenn Beck Radio Program, The Sean Hannity Show, The Ramsey Show with Dave Ramsey, The Michael Berry Show, The Dr. Asa Show with Asa Andrew, Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal. In 2021, WLAC became the flagship station for The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. WLAC has also been the flagship station of Your Morning Show with Michael DelGiorno since 2023.
Weekend shows include Rich DiMuro on Tech, The Weekend with Michael Brown and The Ben Ferguson Show. WLAC carries Vanderbilt University Commodores football and basketball games.
History Early years WLAC has traditionally traced its founding to November 24, 1926. Directory of Radio: Tennessee: Nashville", Broadcasting Yearbook (2009 edition), page D-504. That was the day the station made its first broadcast under the WLAC call sign. However, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) records list WLAC's "Date first licensed" as September 11, 1925, reflecting the initial license date for station WDAD, which was consolidated with WLAC in 1927."AM Query Results: WLAC: First license" (FCC.gov)
WDAD was first licensed in September 1925 to "Dad's Auto Accessories (Inc.)" at 160 Eighth Avenue North in Nashville. It initially transmitted on 1330 kHz."New Stations", Radio Service Bulletin, October 1, 1925, page 3. It made its debut broadcast on September 14."Programs Bring Throngs to Dad's", The (Nashville) Tennessean, September 25, 1925, page 2. WLAC was first authorized in November 1926, owned by the Life & Casualty Insurance Co.,"New Stations", Radio Service Bulletin, November 30, 1926, page 4. with its call letters chosen as an acronym of the owner's name. Studios were located on the fifth floor of the Life and Casualty building in downtown Nashville. WLAC initially operated on a timesharing basis with WDAD on 1330 kHz."Broadcasting Stations" (December 31, 1926), Radio Service Bulletin, December 31, 1926, pages 15, 18.
In mid-1927 Dad's Auto and Life & Casualty formed a partnership for joint operation of their combined stations, as WDAD-WLAC."List of licensed broadcasting stations arranged by call letters in effect July 1, 1927", Second Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission (for the year ended June 30, 1928), page 56. The following November Life & Casualty purchased WDAD's interest in the combined stations, and announced that, effective November 21, 1927, the "call letters WDAD will be discontinued and the station operated only under the call letters WLAC in the future"."Life & Casualty Company Buys WDAD Station", Nashville Tennessean, November 20, 1927, page 1. The November 30, 1928, issue of the Radio Service Bulletin therefore instructed its readers that, for the current WDAD-WLAC station list entry, to "strike-out call WDAD, as Dad's Auto Accessories (Inc.) is no longer joint licensee"."Alterations and Corrections", Radio Service Bulletin, November 30, 1928, page 11.
On November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, WLAC moved to 1490 kHz, operating with 5,000 watts on a timesharing basis with the Waldrum Drug Co.'s WBAW."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 (for the year ended June 30, 1928), page 213. The next year WBAW's call letters were changed to WTNT, after that station had been taken over by The Tennessean newspaper."Alterations and Corrections", Radio Service Bulletin, June 29, 1929, page 17. In early 1930 WLAC"Alterations and Corrections", Radio Service Bulletin, February 28, 1930, page 23. and WTNT"Alterations and Corrections", Radio Service Bulletin, March 31, 1930, page 14. were reassigned from 1490 kHz to 1470 kHz. (WCKY, on 1480 kHz in Covington, Kentucky, had been encountering mutual interference over much of Kentucky and Tennessee with WLAC, and was moved to 1490 kHz at the same time).
On December 16, 1930, WTNT was taken over by Life & Casualty."Radio broadcasting stations consolidated during the fiscal year 1931", Fifth Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission (Fiscal Year 1931), page 13. The next day WTNT, which previously had been allotted 1/3rd time on the shared frequency, ceased broadcasting, allowing WLAC to again operate a fulltime schedule,"WLAC Assumes Control of WTNT", Nashville Tennessean, December 17, 1930, page 3. and WTNT was subsequently deleted."Alterations and Corrections", Radio Service Bulletin, January 31, 1931, page 11.
In 1928, WLAC became Nashville's CBS Radio Network affiliate. Its main competitor, WSM, was affiliated with the NBC Red Network. In the early years of the station, WLAC provided local news, studio-orchestra musical features (accompanied by an in-studio pipe organ), farm reports, and some educational programming. Its main competitor in that era, WSM, became known as the radio station where country music essentially developed and became a national phenomenon. When country music became a big business in the late 1940s, WLAC added early-morning and Saturday-afternoon country shows in an attempt to steal some of WSM's thunder. Otherwise, the station prided itself as a pillar of the community and placed emphasis on general full-service programs.
In 1941, with the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA), WLAC moved to a "Clear Channel" assignment of 1510 kHz, and received permission to increase its power to 50,000 watts."United States Assignments", page 1443. WLAC thus became the second clear-channel station in Tennessee, after WSM. While WSM was a Class I-A station, using a non-directional antenna at all times, WLAC shared its clear channel assignment with KGA in Spokane, Washington. Since WLAC and KGA were designated as co-equal Class I-B stations, both were required to use a directional antenna at night to mutually protect each other's signals. KGA has since given up its clear-channel status, but WLAC is still required to conform its nighttime signal. Even with this restriction, it reaches parts of 28 states and three Canadian provinces at night, including most of the eastern half of the continent. Even at 50,000 watts, WLAC provides only secondary coverage of several inner-ring suburbs, such as Murfreesboro. In contrast, WSM's lower frequency allows it to be heard at city-grade strength in all of Middle Tennessee, with secondary coverage of five states. WLAC's simulcasts on HD Radio serve in part to alleviate this shortfall.
Late night rhythm and blues
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, WLAC was legendary for its quartet of nighttime rhythm and blues shows hosted by Gene Nobles, "John R." (John Richbourg), Herman Grizzard, and Bill "Hossman" (or simply "Hoss") Allen. Thanks to the station's clear channel designation, the signal reached most of the Northeast and Midwestern United States. WLAC described itself as the nighttime station for half the nation with African-American listeners, especially in the Deep South as the intended audience of the programs. Further, several foreign countries, particularly islands in the Caribbean and southern Canada, were within range of the station's nighttime signal; the music heard on WLAC played a notable role in the development of ska music as a result. WLAC was also popular with some young white teenagers. Radio historians believe that the nightly "Rhythm and blues" WLAC shows, in part, laid the foundational audience for the rock and roll phenomenon that began in the late 1950s.
Nobles began the move, in 1946, to play what were considered at the time "race" records, a euphemism intended to deter supposedly respectable audiences. But he and the others reached large numbers of African-American listeners in places like the Mississippi Delta, the Carolina Lowcountry, Louisiana, Chicago, and Detroit, people whom practically no other radio stations were serving. Gradually phasing in artists like Amos Milburn, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino in the early 1950s to supplement the big-band artists of the era such as Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller, the WLAC announcers presided over the development of what became "rhythm and blues" music. They did this mainly to attract advertisers who serviced the African-American community, such as hair-care products like Royal Crown Hair Pomade or chicken hatcheries, which packaged baby scrub roosters and other undesirable stock in large quantities for sale. The disc jockeys developed a reputation for colorfully pitching those products on air; some product slogans lent themselves to sexually suggestive double entendres, which only increased the announcers' popularity among teen listeners. The deejays conducted the advertising sales on a "per inquiry", or commission, basis, meaning that the station did not rely on traditional ratings to gauge the programs' successes.
WLAC sales manager E.G. Blackman sought to hire the nation's first African-American news radio broadcaster employed by a major, white-owned radio station, Don Whitehead. Whitehead, a graduate of Tennessee State University, began his career shortly after the April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Whitehead started in the nighttime slot, announcing the news at the top of the hour. He traveled around WLAC's listening area to promote the historically black colleges and universities and played a big role in increasing enrollment of African Americans attending college.
Performers of later years, such as Johnny Winter, and the Allman brothers, Duane and Gregg, have credited the station as being a valuable source of inspiration for their artistic development. According to Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson (both members of The Band, a 1970s roots rock group) listened to WLAC at night while in Toronto. As a teenager, Robertson would stay up all night to hear blues from deejay John R. A strange irony about the phenomenon was unknown to most listeners of that time: all four disc jockeys were in fact middle-aged white men, not African Americans, as their Southern, gravelly, drawling voices suggested. Richbourg and Allen in particular made frequent use of colloquialisms most familiar to their audience, thereby convincing many that they were "soul brothers," as a common expression of that day.
Other regular sponsors of the four shows included Randy's Record Shop of Gallatin, Tennessee, Ernie's Record Mart, and Buckley's Record Shop, the latter two of Nashville, all of which conducted mail-order business selling the recordings featured on the shows, and had affiliations with record companies in Middle Tennessee.