WMMS (100.7 FM, "The Buzzard") is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, United States, serving Greater Cleveland and much of Northeast Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WMMS features a mix of active rock and hot talk with Rover's Morning Glory and Alan Cox, is the FM flagship for the Cavaliers AudioVerse and the Cleveland Guardians Radio Network, and also carries The House of Hair with Dee Snider. WMMS's studios are located at the Six Six Eight Building in downtown Cleveland's Gateway District; the transmitter is sited in Seven Hills.
This station has been widely regarded throughout its history as one of the most influential rock outlets in American radio. Signing on in 1946 as the FM adjunct to WHK, the WMMS call sign was affixed in 1968 under Metromedia ownership. WMMS originally stood for "Metromedia Stereo" and was meant as a compliment to the newly established progressive rock format, which was dropped the following year in favor of automated music but reinstated by 1970. Metromedia sold both WHK and WMMS to Malrite Communications in 1972, which intended to flip WMMS to country but reversed course after significant community protests. John Gorman was hired as program director in 1973, a title he held until 1986. Under Gorman's leadership, WMMS had a stable of personalities that remained fundamentally unchanged, in particular morning hosts Jeff Kinzbach and Ed "Flash" Ferenc and afternoon host Kid Leo, and attained a dominant market share in local ratings. Debuting in April 1974, WMMS's promotional mascot has been an anthropomorphic "Buzzard" cartoon character, initially as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Cleveland's Rust Belt stigma and later becoming one of the most recognizable symbols in the city.
WMMS played a key role in breaking several major acts in the United States, including David Bowie, Rush, and Bruce Springsteen, the latter's rise attributed heavily to Leo's support. Springsteen's 1978 concert at the Agora Ballroom celebrating WMMS' 10th anniversary was critically acclaimed, regionally syndicated and heavily bootlegged. Station employees went on to take director and executive-level positions in the recording industry, namely with labels RCA, Mercury, and Columbia. Noted filmmakers, including Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) and Paul Schrader (Light of Day), have called on WMMS personnel for assistance. WMMS was a major driving force behind the successful campaign to bring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland. The station competed aggressively against WWWM for listeners in the 1970s, and then with WGCL in the 1980s. By 1983, WMMS began playing increasing amounts of contemporary hit radio songs alongside the standard rock playlist in what was dubbed "Rock Forty". Facing a deteriorating environment with upper management, Gorman and multiple staffers jointly resigned on August 1986 to flip WGCL to WNCX.
Rolling Stone named WMMS its "Best Radio Station" for a large market from 1979 to 1987 as part of their annual Readers' Poll, but the station admitted to stuffing the 1987 ballot following a February 1988 front-page story in The Plain Dealer exposing manipulation. Amid subsequent years of management and airstaff turnover, the station's ratings, and those of Kinzbach and Ferenc, began to decline significantly in 1992 following WNCX's addition of The Howard Stern Show. Facing significant debt issues, Malrite sold their radio division to Shamrock Broadcasting, who promptly resold WHK and WMMS to former Malrite executive, and WMJI owner, Carl Hirsch. Hirsch's April 1994 takeover induced the departure of Kinzbach and Ferenc, but returned Gorman to the program director role alongside a relaunch as "Buzzard Radio: The Next Generation", with an alternative rock focus. The following month, a WMMS engineer severed a transmission line during a live remote broadcast of Stern's show intended as a mock "funeral" for the Buzzard; several staffers pled guilty in court to the federal offense and WMMS' license faced scrutiny.
Hirsch sold WMMS and WMJI to WGAR-FM owner Nationwide Communications in 1996, resulting in Gorman's second departure. WMMS was refocused to an active rock presentation with shock jock Liz Wilde, who sued the station after being fired over low ratings. Nationwide sold its radio division to Jacor the following year; after the sale closed, WMMS underwent a month-long "Death of the Buzzard" publicity stunt implying a format switch that was cancelled at the last minute. Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) bought Jacor in 1999. WMMS became notorious between 1994 and 2008 for an inability to find a successful morning show, a problem that was ultimately resolved with the addition of Rover. The station also began emphasizing talk in the afternoons, first with Maxwell from 2004 to 2009, and with Alan Cox from 2010 onward. Co-flagship of the Cleveland Browns Radio Network from 1991 to 1993 and again from 2001 to 2012, WMMS has been co-flagship of the Guardians since 2012 and the Cavaliers since 2014.
In addition to a standard analog transmission, WMMS broadcasts over three HD Radio channels and is available online via iHeartRadio. WMMS-HD2 is relayed over translator W256BT () and has a sports format as "Sports Radio 99.1". WMMS-HD3, relayed over translator W266CJ (), is the Cleveland affiliate for the Black Information Network.
History Origins and early years as WHK-FM
The United Broadcasting Company (UBC), owners of stations WHK and WCLE and controlled by The Plain Dealer, filed paperwork with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in late January 1941 to construct an FM station at , with studios at the Higbee Building. At the time, only one FM station was in operation in Cleveland: WBOE, the station of the Cleveland Public Schools. While the FCC dismissed the application without prejudice on June 16, 1942, it was reinstated by the commission on March 30, 1943; by May 1945, UBC filed to move the transmitter to WHK's Seven Hills site.
UBC launched W8XUB, an experimental FM station at , on March 30, 1946, with talks delivered by WHK general manager H. K. Carpenter, chief engineer Carl Smith, and Plain Dealer writer Robert S. Stephan. Only two FM receivers were reported as having picked up W8XUB: one at the WHK transmitter site and another in a downtown store. The FCC issued a construction permit for W8XUB on August 11, 1946. W8XUB was moved to on July 31, 1947, and transitioned from experimental to commercial status on November 13, 1947, adopting the WHKX call sign and undergoing a power increase. It was one of eleven FM permits to be granted simultaneously by the FCC in Cleveland, Akron and Elyria. While simulcasting much of WHK's programming, WHKX also originated shows independent of WHK with an emphasis on recorded music and short news bulletins and occasionally originated live music concerts. By November 1948, WHKX was renamed WHK-FM. Both stations moved in February 1951 to the "WHK Auditorium", a complex also intended for television as UBC held a UHF permit for a station on channel 19.
In early January 1954, WHK morning host Bill Gordon solicited on-air for listener interest in a nightly program of high fidelity recordings on WHK-FM, believing hi-fi on FM could help mitigate television's impact on radio. Despite this, WHK-FM continued to simulcast WHK, even as other stations like WDOK-FM, WERE-FM, WGAR-FM and KYW-FM began originating programming of their own. UBC sold WHK and WHK-FM to DuMont Broadcasting, recently spun off from the Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, on February 26, 1958, for $750,000. The WHK Auditorium was sold separately and included a lease agreement. After the sale, John Kluge purchased majority control of DuMont after failing to purchase WSRS and WSRS-FM, and the company was renamed Metropolitan Broadcasting. By 1961, Metropolitan was renamed again to Metromedia.
WHK-FM broke from simulcasting WHK to carry the 1960 Democratic and Republican National Conventions in their entirety, and by October 2, 1961, began a separate music schedule from 4 p.m. until midnight daily; the change was tied to WHK-FM's three-year license renewal. Additional programming was added to WHK-FM on March 12, 1962, including David Susskind's interview show and taped music shows hosted by former KYW host Big Wilson. By 1966, WHK-FM broadcast in stereo and increased programming from 6 a.m. to midnight, the latter change followed the FCC's enactment of the FM Non-Duplication Rule. Plans were made to relaunch WHK-FM in September 1967 with an all-female airstaff after Metromedia's WNEW-FM in New York City did a similar experiment. WHK-FM's plans were delayed; Cleveland Press critic Bill Barrett mused, "... must be easier to find nice-looking ladies than it is to find nice-sounding ones". Despite over 200 applicants, the all-female airstaff never debuted, and WHK-FM continued featuring a middle of the road (MOR) format.
Becoming WMMS: "The new groove", dropping and restoring rock
In July 1968, Metromedia announced WHK-FM would switch to progressive rock on August 15, along with a future call sign change. Metromedia implemented this format at WNEW-FM and KMET in Los Angeles, both of which would contribute to WHK-FM. Concert promoter Pat McCoy, previously WHK's music director, pitched the format to the station and noted the successes at WNEW and KMET; Metromedia agreed to the pitch and hired him as operations manager. While WHK-FM was the first station in Cleveland to adopt progressive rock full-time, it had been represented through Martin Perlich's The Perlich Project on WCLV and Doc Nemo's overnight shows on WZAK and WIXY, the latter the market's dominant Top 40 station. Both Nemo and Perlich joined WHK-FM, Nemo for late nights while Perlich hosted weekends alongside his WCLV work. Billy Bass, a former record store manager who specialized in the genre, hosted evenings.
Dubbed "The New Groove", WHK-FM was renamed WMMS on September 28, 1968, standing for "Metromedia Stereo". Press writer Nelson Moore said of the new format, "It's like sitting down all day with a ten foot stack of albums and letting someone else do all the work of playing them for you while you just sit back and listen". Airstaff initially ran into culture clashes with the older engineers tasked with playing the music, some of which refused to play the music cued up. WMMS hosted a series of concerts at the WHK Auditorium, with one set by The Moody Blues described by Plain Dealer writer Karl Burkhardt as "ear shattering" and "plaster... falling from the ceiling". As 1968 ended, the playlist was altered to include select Top 40 hits and post-1963 songs alongside the rock music in a bid to increase listeners.
Unlike in other markets where Metromedia succeeded with FM progressive rock, WMMS flipped back to automated MOR on May 27, 1969. WHK/WMMS general manager Ken Gaines cited a lack of listener support and told the Plain Dealer, "popular standards are our forte". Former morning host Victor Boc later claimed the format never had a chance among management and sales personnel desirous of an immediate bottom line impact. Billboard criticized the switch as "like throwing away an FM signal... if you can't use it properly, for God's sake give it away to someone who can!" On November 7, 1969, WMMS flipped again to carry the Drake-Chenault Hit Parade '69, preceded with a marathon airing of The History of Rock and Roll. This coincided with Metromedia appointing a separate general manager for WMMS, in line with the rest of the group.