WERE (1490 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland Heights, Ohio, United States, featuring a talk radio format as "NewsTalk 1490". Owned by Urban One, the station serves the Greater Cleveland region and carries The Rickey Smiley Morning Show, is the home of syndicated personalities Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and is the Cleveland affiliate for Red Eye Radio. WERE's studios are located in Independence while the transmitter is near University Circle adjacent to the Case Western Reserve University campus. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WERE's programming is available online and simulcast on an HD Radio subchannel of co-owned WZAK.
Built and launched in 1947 as WSRS, a suburban station focused on Cleveland Heights proper, this station became the second in the Cleveland market to use the WJMO call sign in 1959. During this period, WJMO carried a rhythm and blues/soul music format continuously from 1959 to 1999, reputedly longer than any other such station in the United States, and was one of the first major-market radio stations to have an African-American serve as their general manager. At the same time, a number of legal issues surrounding owner United Broadcasting, repeated technical violations committed, strained relations between station management and the station's staff and audience, and a controversial ownership transfer in 1992 attracted criticism and scrutiny by the public, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), at one point putting the station's broadcast license in question. A series of ownership buyouts in the late 1990s saw the station adopt an urban gospel format, then come under control of Radio One (now Urban One); a 2007 format swap resulted in picking up the format and calls of WERE from , which it has maintained to the present day. Since 2008, an emphasis has been placed on brokered programming.
WSRS (1947–1959)
Early years Samuel R. Sague established this station as WSRS on December 12, 1947, the call letters being derived from his initials; an FM sister station, WSRS-FM (95.3), followed one week later. Both the AM and FM stations were licensed to Cleveland Heights, and positioned themselves as focusing on the Cleveland suburb specifically as opposed to all of Greater Cleveland. WSRS-FM duplicated the AM station's programming full-time, but Sague—an early proponent of FM broadcasting—referred to it in a Cleveland Press profile as WSRS that was simulcasting WSRS-FM.
WSRS's establishment on the class C local channel frequency of was made possible in part after WGAR (AM) had completed a frequency switch from to two and a half years earlier. Operating initially with 250 watts around the clock, WSRS billed itself on-air as the "Community Information Voice of Cleveland", featuring a diverse lineup of block programming. WSRS's staff announcers also included the first male and female African-American announcers in Cleveland radio: "Walkin' Talkin' Bill Hawkins", who later worked for multiple radio stations at the same time, and whose on-air presentation has been seen as a significant influence on Alan Freed; and Mary Holt, who initially played country music, later becoming a newscaster at different radio and television stations in the market. By 1949, Sague entered into an alliance with other foreign language/ethnic radio programmers, including WOV (AM)/New York City and stations in Boston, Scranton, Pennsylvania and Detroit, titled the "Foreign Language Quality Group", with intent of launching a broadcast network of their own.
WSRS was notable for different area promotions and gimmicks. One such content was a "Big Week-End" competition in 1956, where WSRS acted as an intermediary for the winner and negotiate with said winner's employer for paid time off. The station engaged in an ad campaign with an area appliance store based on a "mystery song" of the day, this was intertwined with WSRS's afternoon lineup. In 1957, WSRS celebrated its tenth anniversary by holding a "Super-Chek" contest, where the station's advertisers received numbered certificates resembling dollar bills to distribute to customers, and the station would announce the winning number hourly. Another promotion was aimed as housewives listening to the station at home, with recorded spots suggesting that their spouses' possible bad humor is the result of his employer's poor sales, suggesting that he contact WSRS for advertisement information. In addition, the station hosted a nightly hour block at midnight devoted to music unpublished elsewhere; titled "Tune Quest," this program was sponsored by a local recording company.
The station, and Sague himself, publicly advocated for the use of courtroom photography and broadcasting in the Judiciary of Ohio. On April 25, 1957, WSRS and Sague hosted a private screening of mass murderer Jack Gilbert Graham's trial, compiled from television and film coverage, for the judges of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas; Graham's trial was the first one to have such coverage. WSRS would also make news on July 15, 1958, when two on-air hosts of a panel discussion program dealing with trade unions and right to work legislation were attacked by two unknown assailants outside the studio; the station had previously been subject to a series of threatening telephone calls over the program's subject matter. Rival organizations Ohioans for the Right-to-Work and the Cleveland AFL-CIO both offered up rewards for the arrests and convictions of the attackers.
Originally an independent station, WSRS picked up an affiliation with the Mutual Broadcasting System on September 30, 1956, then added ABC Radio Network programming in January 1958 after WJW () dropped the affiliation. The dual affiliation lasted until that July 23, when Mutual programming moved to WDOK ().
Sale to United
Sague initially sold WSRS and WSRS-FM to John Kluge for $500,000 in July 1958 under the "Shawn Broadcasting Company" name. That sale was withheld by the FCC, then withdrawn by Sague, due to a review of WLOF-TV/Orlando's establishment by the commission, of which Kluge was a principal in; Kluge also acquired controlling interest in Metropolitan Broadcasting, which had purchased WHK () and WHK-FM (100.7) earlier in the year. Consequently, Sague sold 95% of both stations to Richard Eaton's United Broadcasting for $306,000, plus a consultant's fee of $20,000 annually for five years, and a five-year non-compete clause preventing him from working for any other station in the Cleveland market.
United Broadcasting already owned WJMO () and the construction permit for an FM station at , both were divested to Tuschman Broadcasting Company for $250,000, while United retained use of the WJMO call letters.
WJMO (1959–2007)
Emergence as an urban outlet Upon the deal's consummation on January 30, 1959, United Broadcasting changed the call letters of WSRS and WSRS-FM to WJMO and WJMO-FM, and reassigned on- and off-air staff while retaining WSRS's existing studios and facilities at 2156 Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. Accordingly, the previous WJMO fell silent for a month before resuming operations as WABQ (), later signing on the FM construction permit as WABQ-FM (106.5). "Friendly Broadcasting Company" was assigned by United Broadcasting as the license name for both WJMO and WJMO-FM. United owned 100 percent of Friendly's stock, and Richard Eaton owned 100 percent of United stock, effectively making Friendly a shell corporation.Federal Communications Commission, p. 401. WJMO-FM would apply to move to that July with increased power, and took the call sign WCUY on October 30, eventually adopting a jazz format full-time.
Shortly after the takeover and call letter change, WJMO moved to a black-oriented rhythm and blues/soul music format. WABQ would do the same, but unlike WJMO, they explicitly boasted an on-air staff composed entirely of African-Americans; WJMO still carried assorted ethnic and religious programming on their lineup, including Message of Hope, a 15-minute long daily sermon produced and hosted by Richard Eaton himself.
WJMO notably took credit for being the first radio station outside of Detroit to play the Mary Wells song The One Who Really Loves You.
Legal and racial troubles WJMO's license was granted a short-term renewal by the FCC on January 19, 1965, along with four other stations owned by Richard Eaton. The unusual move was made due to technical violations at WJMO, and came as co-owned WOOK AM/FM in Washington, D.C. and WBNX in New York City were facing increased scrutiny and fines over their operations, although it was not provable at the time that WJMO was facing issues similar to those stations (WCUY's license, by contrast, was granted a full renewal).Federal Communications Commission, p. 420. Along with the renewal, WJMO's daytime power was increased to 1,000 watts daytime, while remaining at 250 watts for nighttime hours.
Pierre Eaton—Richard Eaton's son, who also served as United's vice president and as a secretary for Friendly—assumed direct responsibility for WJMO's operations in mid-1969; he would relinquish those duties in January 1970, but not before operations manager John Slade was fired. Morton Silverman—Friendly's vice-president and assistant secretary—assumed oversight of the station shortly thereafter, while Slade's dismissal ignited a dispute between staff and management over working conditions at the station and the lack of blacks in key leadership positions. Station staff and local community groups, including the SCLC's Cleveland chapter, presented a list of 21 demands; these included the installation of new broadcast equipment, appointments of African-Americans to management roles, and the cancellation of all ethnic and religious programs, including Message of Hope. Key station personnel formed a coalition with the SCLC that staged a boycott, picketing, and then an employee-led "sick out," which took the station off the air between January 12 and 21, 1970; Friendly retaliated by firing all personnel involved in the "sick out", while the SCLC's Cleveland chapter asked sponsors to withhold advertising from WJMO. In a truce called to resolve matters between the staff and the management, the fired personnel were reinstated, and morning host Kennard "Ken" Hawkins was appointed the station's general manager; becoming the first African-American to hold that position at a Cleveland radio station.
The legal problems for WJMO, and of United Broadcasting itself, deepened into the 1970s. On January 26, 1972, WJMO and WLYT ()—the recently renamed WCUY—were added to a group of five Eaton-owned stations designated for hearing by the FCC. WJMO faced questions over: a possible violation of the equal-time rule and/or the FCC fairness doctrine; the failure to properly file time-brokerage contracts; inadequate monitoring of existing brokered ethnic programming; potential rigging of on-air contests; and misrepresentations of the station's news staff and public affairs programming records. This was later expanded to include a possible "numbers racket" through some religious programming and stock market reports that subversively transmitted information tied to illegal numbers games, following the testimony of several WJMO employees at one of the initial license review hearings. A similar investigation into on-air programs covertly broadcasting gambling information had already occurred at WOOK/Washington, D.C.