KYW (1060 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to serve Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of the oldest continuously operating radio stations in the United States, originating in Chicago before moving to Philadelphia in 1934. KYW's unusual history includes its call sign of only three letters, beginning with a K, rare for a station in the Eastern United States. It broadcasts an all-news radio format and is branded as "KYW Newsradio". KYW serves as the flagship station of Audacy, Inc. KYW's studios are co-located within Audacy's corporate headquarters in Center City Philadelphia and its transmitter and two-tower directional antenna array are located in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania.
KYW is a 50,000–watt class A clear channel station. It is one of two clear-channel stations in Philadelphia, the other being sister station WPHT. With a good radio receiver, its nighttime signal can be heard in much of the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada, however, it restricts its signal towards the Southwest United States to protect XECPAE-AM in Mexico City, which shares Class A status on AM 1060. The station's signal is restricted towards the Northeast United States to protect the signal of WEPN in New York City, which is one frequency away at 1050 AM. KYW Newsradio's programming is also available via a simulcast on sister station 103.9 WPHI-FM and the HD2 subchannel of sister station 94.1 WIP-FM.https://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?id=16 HD Radio Guide for Philadelphia
History Origin in Chicago (1921) In November 1920, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company established its first broadcasting station, KDKA, located at its plant in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to promote the sales of its radio receivers. This initial station proved successful, so in 1921, the company developed plans to set up additional stations in major population centers, including WJZ in Newark, New Jersey (now WABC in New York City), and WBZ, originally in Springfield, Massachusetts, and now in Boston. It also wanted to start a station in Chicago.
The Westinghouse station was first licensed on November 15, 1921, as Chicago's first broadcasting outlet, with the randomly assigned call letters of KYW.Limited Commercial license, serial No. 241, call letters KYW, issued November 15, 1921, to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Chicago, for a one year period. At first, it was jointly operated by Westinghouse and Commonwealth Edison, with Westinghouse later taking over as sole operator. Through the financial support of Samuel Insull, and the cooperation of Mary Garden, director general of the Chicago Opera Company, KYW's initial broadcasts consisted of the opera company's entire 6-day-a-week winter season schedule. Ten microphones were installed across the Chicago Civic Auditorium stage, with equipment for switching between them as needed. After the close of the opera season, KYW installed a studio in the Commonwealth Edison building, and began producing additional programming.A Tower in Babel by Eric Barnouw, 1966, pages 88-89. By fall of 1922, the station was operating for 12 hours a day."Radio Has Gripped Chicago" by George P. Stone, Radio Broadcast, October 1922, pages 503-511.
In 1927, Westinghouse affiliated its four radio stations (KYW, KDKA in Pittsburgh, WBZ in Springfield and WBZA in Boston) with the National Broadcasting Company's (NBC) Blue Network, originating from WJZ in New York City, which had been transferred from Westinghouse to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1923. Westinghouse had been a founding partner of RCA, NBC's original parent company.
In 1923, Westinghouse had established a station, KFKX in Hastings, Nebraska, located near the center of the country. This station was designed to serve a dual purpose, of providing agricultural programming, and for testing the practicality of shortwave transmitters for linking radio networks, with KFKX receiving much of its programming by shortwave from KDKA in Pittsburgh. In 1927, the project was abandoned, although it was announced that the KFKX programming was being consolidated with KYW. Westinghouse now controlled two stations in addition to KYW in the Chicago area: KFKX and WEBH. On September 1, 1928, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) ordered that their operations should be consolidated.Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission For the Year Ended June 30, 1928, page 162. WEBH was deleted,"Strike out all particulars" Radio Service Bulletin, November 30, 1928, page 12. and the other two stations were merged, with a dual call letter assignment of KYW-KFKX, although the latter call sign would be rarely if ever used after 1930.
Under the provisions of the FRC's General Order 40, a sweeping reallocation of frequencies was implemented on November 11, 1928, and KYW was assigned to 1020 kHz."Revised list of broadcasting stations", Second Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission (June 30, 1928), page 204. Its transmitter was moved from the top of Chicago's Congress Hotel to west suburban Bloomingdale Township.History Cards for KYW , fcc.gov. Retrieved March 16, 2020. The signal experienced difficulties in covering the entire city of Chicago, so a relay transmitter on the same frequency, KYWA, was set up,"New Stations", Radio Service Bulletin, December 31, 1928, page 3. although it was deleted in the spring of 1930."Strike out all particulars", Radio Service Bulletin, May 31, 1930, page 21.
On May 15, 1933, after the FRC requested that stations using only one of their assigned call letters drop those that were no longer in regular use, KFKX was eliminated and the station reverted to just KYW."Double Call Letters Are Being Eliminated", Washington (D.C.) Evening Star, June 25, 1933, Part 4, page 6.
Move to Philadelphia (1934) KYW assignment to the clear channel frequency of 1020 kHz caused a major problem. Under the provisions of the "Davis Amendment", eight clear channel frequencies were to be allocated to each of five national regions. Chicago was located in Region 4, while the reallocation provisions had reserved 1020 kHz for Region 2, a grouping of mid-Atlantic states. Westinghouse fought a long legal battle, attempting to keep KYW operating as a clear channel station on 1020 in Chicago. Finally it proposed moving the station to a Region 2 location, settling on Philadelphia."The KYW Story" (talk given September 24, 1975, by Joseph Baudino to the Philadelphia Broadcast Pioneers). However, numerous other stations made alternative proposals to be assigned this allocation, and the matter was placed in the hands of an FRC examiner, who held hearings in July 1932 to sort through 23 conflicting applications from 16 stations. Examiner Pratt's recommendation concluded that KYW's willingness to move to Philadelphia was the best possible outcome."Removal of KYW to Philadelphia Urged by Pratt as Solution to 1020 kc. Mixup", Broadcasting, November 15, 1932, page 12.
After broadcasting its last program in Chicago on December 2, 1934, KYW aired its debut Philadelphia program the next day. Westinghouse used the studios and sales operations of WCAU. The move made KYW the easternmost U.S. radio station with a call sign beginning with "K".KYW is currently one of three "K" stations in Pennsylvania on the AM band, in addition to KDKA and KQV, both in Pittsburgh. There does not appear to be any reason why KYW and KQV were assigned "K" call letters. At the time both were first licensed, the Department of Commerce had a standard policy for broadcast stations of "K's in the west, W's in the east" that dated back to the start of licensing in late 1912, and has been generally followed ever since. KDKA was first licensed during a short anomaly when new land stations briefly shared a block of call letters that were normally reserved for ship stations. When KYW moved to Philadelphia, it changed from NBC Blue to NBC Red, predecessor of modern-day NBC, "Beginning Tomorrow, 6:45 AM." Philadelphia Inquirer, December 2, 1934, p. 11. an affiliation it maintained during the remainder of the 1930s and throughout the 1940s; "Comparison of New and Old Rate Schedules of NBC." Broadcasting, January 15, 1935, p. 6. KYW was thus unaffected when, in 1942, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) compelled RCA to divest itself of one of its two radio networks, resulting in the divestiture of the NBC Blue network (which later became the American Broadcasting Company). In mid-May 1938, KYW moved to new studios at 1619 Walnut Street in Center City. "Special Programs Mark Opening of New KYW Studios." Camden (New Jersey) Courier-Post, May 19, 1938, p. 6.
On March 29, 1941, KYW's clear channel assignment was shifted from 1020 to 1060 kHz, its current frequency, as part of a nationwide adjustment of assignments engineered by the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA). In 1942, KYW added an FM station at 45.7 MHz, W57PH."Directory of U.S. Commercial FM Stations", Broadcasting Yearbook (1942 edition), page 326. It largely simulcast KYW's programming and later moved to 92.5 MHz as KYW-FM when the FM dial was shifted. Development of FM radio was slow and Westinghouse decided to shut down KYW-FM in mid-1954; the equipment was donated to the Delaware Valley Educational Television Corporation and the Philadelphia Board of Education. "Schools to Pay $25,000 in Deal for FM Rights," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 3, 1954, p. 21.
KYW acquired a television counterpart in late February 1953, when Westinghouse bought WPTZ (channel 3), the nation's third commercial television station and NBC's second television affiliate, from Philco."Westinghouse buys WPTZ (TV) for record $8.5 million", Broadcasting - Telecasting, February 23, 1953, page 27.
KYW Cleveland/WRCV Philadelphia (1956–1965)
In June 1955 Westinghouse agreed to trade KYW and WPTZ to NBC in exchange for NBC's Cleveland properties, WTAM-AM-FM and WNBK television; Westinghouse also received $3 million in cash compensation."NBC, WBC trade properties in Cleveland, Philadelphia", Broadcasting - Telecasting, May 23, 1955, pages 65-66, 68. The main impetus for the trade was NBC's desire to acquire an owned-and-operated television station in the fourth-largest American television market. NBC had to receive a waiver for the swap because KYW and NBC Radio's New York City flagship, WRCA (now WFAN) were both clear channel stations. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of clear channel stations with overlapping nighttime coverage. After clearing the final regulatory hurdles, the swap went into effect on January 22, 1956."NBC, Westinghouse complete exchange", Broadcasting - Telecasting, January 30, 1956, page 59.
On February 13, NBC changed KYW's call letters in Philadelphia to WRCV (for the RCA-Victor record label).Ibid. "Mr. Sarnoff noted that NBC's parent, RCA, and RCA Victor 'have been closely identified with the Philadelphia-Camden area for many years. It is for this reason that NBC has chosen WRCV and WRCV-TV as the call letters for its Philadelphia stations.'" At the same time, Westinghouse changed the call letters of its new Cleveland station from WTAM to KYW."NBC, WBC outlets change calls today", Broadcasting - Telecasting, February 13, 1956, page 98. The Westinghouse-NBC station swap, and its subsequent reversal nine years later, resulted in two alternate ways to recount KYW's history. In the records of the FCC, the station in Philadelphia on 1060 kHz merely underwent two call letter and ownership changes, taking place in 1956 and 1965. However most KYW histories follow the path of the call letters, and refer to KYW moving from Philadelphia to Cleveland in 1956, then returning to Philadelphia nine years later."The History of KYW Newsradio" , which details the evolution of the station from Chicago, to Philadelphia, to Cleveland and back to Philadelphia (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)