Many New Yorkers haven’t recognized the Large Apple with out WCBS Newsradio 880 or, earlier WCBS Newsradio 88, however on Monday, the station’s proprietor, Audacy, introduced that the station would finish its six-decade run later this month.
The station started to broadcast 99 years in the past as WAHG, the initials of Alfred H. Grebe, who created the pioneering station in New York Metropolis in 1924. WAHG started broadcasts on 920 kHz and, in early 1925, moved to 950 kHz.
Since 1924, the station has been recognized for asserting the time each three minutes; extra lately it additionally would announce the time on the time of the hour in a extra grand method, preceded by a bong signifier and the phrases “WCBS information time …”
In 1926, Grebe modified the callsign to WABC (which was and is unrelated to the present-day ABC community), and, in 1928, WABC-WBOQ (BOQ stood for Borough of Queens), a consolidated callsign, started to function a part-time affiliate for CBS.
Quickly thereafter, CBS founder and Chairman William Paley bought the station, elevated its transmitting energy from 5,000 to 50,000 watts, the utmost permitted by the FCC. WABC featured a mixture of native curiosity programming together with dramas, comedies, information, sports activities and music packages from CBS’s nationwide feed.
In 1940, the principally unused WBOQ was eradicated from the callsign and WABC moved to 880 kHz.
When a station in Springfield, Illinois, modified its callsign from WCBS to WCVS, WABC wasted no time in altering its callsign to WCBS, this on November 2, 1946.
For the subsequent twenty years, the station developed a sequence of radio cleaning soap operas, afternoon speak exhibits, and an all evening easy-listening music present entitled “Music ‘til Daybreak,” hosted by Bob Corridor and sponsored by American Airways. WCBS additionally featured quite a few well-known personalities together with Arthur Godfrey, future CBS Information President Invoice Leonard, folks singer Oscar Model, and creator Emily Kimbrough. By the late Fifties, the station had turn out to be an MOR, or middle-of-the-road music and persona broadcaster, however the place it actually shone was in native information protection.
Within the Nineteen Sixties, Paley, involved in regards to the station’s low scores, led a course of that culminated within the creation of “Newsradio 88,” roughly the present-day station format.
Initially, Newsradio 88 solely ran information throughout drive-time intervals, and maintained an MOR format throughout noon and in a single day hours however that modified in 1970 when Godfrey retired and American Airways ended its sponsorship of the in a single day music program.
Certainly, its first day was a information story unto itself as an airplane “taken with out authorization” crashed into WCBS-AM’s 480’ (146 m) excessive radio tower on Excessive Island close to Metropolis Island, on Lengthy Island Sound close to the Bronx, taking the station down earlier than it ever acquired off the bottom. The primary day of Newsradio 88’s programming was carried on sister station WCBS-FM and police on the time mentioned the loss of life toll from the airplane crash might have been as excessive as 5 folks.
The revamped station’s unique roster of anchors included Charles Osgood, Ed Bradley, Robert Vaughn, and Pat Summerall. Later anchors included veteran newscaster Lou Adler, Jim Donnelly, Harvey Hauptman, Invoice Lynch, and Gary Maurer.
Legendary WCBS newsman Lou Adler, who began his profession on the radio station as a reporter in 1959, briefly switched to tv however returned to WCBS-AM as an anchor with the launch of the all-news format.
When Adler died in 2017 WCBS Newsradio 880 mentioned it was maybe poetic that Mr. Adler, who for a few years was a part of a extremely regarded morning workforce with Jim Donnelly, died at 88, as a result of “he was as accountable as anybody for making that quantity – 88 – legendary on the radio dial.”
With a stellar roster, the station constructed a popularity as an all-news powerhouse beginning the Nineteen Seventies, and has continued with an all-news format to this present day.
For many years, WCBS has paired its visitors and climate reporters which might be broadcast “on the eights” as “Visitors and Climate Collectively.” It’s notable that the station’s longtime chief meteorologist, Craig Allen, and rush-hour visitors reporter Tom Kaminski, have been with the station for over three many years and part-time meteorologist Todd Glickman has been a fixture at WCBS since 1979.
Earlier than that, Gordon Barnes, who had acquired his climate and flight coaching with Pan American World Airways, spending 11 years with the airline, served because the station’s meteorologist. He was the one skilled meteorologist to work with famed American broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite and was part of the CBS Apollo Mission Tv Workforce. He additionally had the excellence of flying in Hurricane Hunter plane into Hurricanes Andrew, Iris, and Marilyn. He launched the jet stream to tv viewers and the wind chill issue to all the broadcasting business.
Neal Busch was the station’s first helicopter pilot and visitors reporter, leasing his ship and companies to the station. He coated the morning rush hour whereas one other pilot and a visitors reporter, Donna Fiducia, reported on the night rush hour.
In 1979, the station’s on-air meteorologist, Bob Harris, who was additionally the consulting meteorologist of the New York Instances was dismissed by each considerations after it grew to become recognized that he had misrepresented his educational credentials.
The 40-year-old climate forecaster had been employed by the Instances since final July 20, 1978 and by WCBS‐AM since January 1977. He had mentioned he earned a doctorate in geophysics from Columbia College in 1966, a grasp’s diploma from New York College in 1963, and a Bachelor of Science diploma from the College of Buffalo in 1962.
When challenged, Harris acknowledged he had no such credentials.
In 2017, CBS Radio agreed to merge with Entercom, now Audacy, and, in 2022, Audacy reached a brand new contract with SAG-AFTRA permitting the employees of WCBS and sister station WINS, the oldest repeatedly operated all-news station in the US, having adopted the format in 1965, to be merged and it was most likely clear to many who the top was nigh.
“We aren’t eliminating both model,” mentioned Chris Oliviero, Audacy’s New York market president, in explaining what to anticipate – and never count on – from the reorganization of the 2 stations’ news-gathering capabilities and editorial constructions.
The long-lasting WCBS name letters can be retired and are to get replaced by WHSQ, pending FCC approval.
(Pictures: Accura Media Group)
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