WAKR
Encyclopedia
WAKR — branded 1590 WAKR — is a commercial radio station in Akron, Ohio
. It is owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WONE-FM
and WQMX
. The station features local news and talk in the morning, with an oldies
format throughout the rest of the day.
WAKR has also been for many years the Akron affiliate for broadcasts of the Cleveland Indians
, Cleveland Browns
and Cleveland Cavaliers
. Their news department (dubbed the "Akron Radio Center Newsroom" and "AkronNewsNow") also feeds drive-time news and traffic updates to sister stations WONE
and WQMX
, updates the company's "AkronNewsNow" local news and information website http://www.akronnewsnow.com, and operates an all-news internet station dubbed "WAKRNewsNow" http://www.akronnewsnow.com/news/wakrnewsnow.asp.
s.
While crosstown rival WADC
(now WARF
) had the advantage of being a CBS affiliate with its popular network programs, WAKR built its reputation primarily through local programming, supplemented with an active news department. The local emphasis worked, and during WAKR's peak, in 1946 and 1947, Hooper ratings showed the station with as much as 60 percent of the Akron audience.
In 1945 Alan Freed
joined WAKR and became a local favorite, playing hot jazz and pop recordings. When he left the station, the non-compete clause in his contract limited its ability to find work elsewhere, and he was forced to take the graveyard shift at Cleveland's WJW radio where he eventually made history playing the music he called "Rock and Roll."
In 1946, Berk expanded ownership of Summit Radio Corp. by selling 45% to the Beacon Journal Publishing Co., publishers of the Akron Beacon Journal
. The newspaper company would continue to own a piece of Summit's operations for 30 years
http://12.100.23.254:8080/bj/news/2000/September/10/docs/031187.htm.
During the 1950s and 1960s WAKR was Akron's premier radio station. It operated as a very successful Top 40 station during the 1960s, competing with cross-town WHLO
. WAKR also started Akron's first FM station, WAKR-FM, in 1948. It changed to easy listening
WAEZ in the late 1960s, and became rock
WONE-FM
on January 1, 1985.
WAKR also started Akron's first television station WAKR-TV in 1953. Originally intended as a VHF licencee on channel 11, it wound up on channel 49 after an FCC imposed freeze on future VHF stations, as well as a merging of the Cleveland and Akron markets into one single market. The station moved to channel 23 in 1967, and was affiliated with ABC despite Cleveland's WEWS also holding an ABC affiliation. Many of WAKR's personalities shared airtime on the TV side throughout this time period; current afternoon host Tim Daugherty was a weatherman on WAKR-TV for many years. The TV station changed its callsign to WAKC-TV in 1986 when Group One was broken up, and it now known as Ion Television owned & operated station WVPX-TV, targeted to the Cleveland market.
Since taking to the air, WAKR has been the home to many personalities who would become national stars, among them film actors Lola Albright
and Mark Stevens
; radio names Peter Hackes, Scott Muni
and Charlie Greer
; and the first host of TV's Jeopardy!
Art Fleming
(known there as Art Fazzin).
Ownership of the Berk family broadcasting interests was organized as Group One Broadcasting around 1965 when it purchased WONE (AM)
and WONE-FM (later WTUE
) in Dayton
. It bought KBOX and KBOX-FM in Dallas
in 1967, and KLZ and KLZ-FM
in Denver
in 1972. Summit Radio and Group One were dissolved in June 1986, and the station passed through four different owners in the next seven years. By then, WAKR was airing a full-service adult contemporary/pop music
format.
WAKR along with WONE-FM and the other Group One stations were sold to DKM Broadcasting in June 1986 (WAKR's license was transferred in September 1986). DKM (Dyson Kissner-Moran) sold all of its properties, including other stations in Dayton, Dallas, Denver, Baltimore, Springfield and Lincoln, on January 1, 1988 for $200 million to Summit Communications Group
(which had no connection to Summit Radio, WAKR's previous owner).
Ownership passed to U.S. Radio headed by Ragan Henry on December 7, 1989. Not too long after the Gulf War in early 1992, WAKR abruptly dropped its standards format, and went into a news-talk format. It featured national hosts Rush Limbaugh
and Larry King
, local talk hosts Bill Hall and Dave Milo, plus a morning-drive news program hosted by Bob Allen, the lone holdover from the previous format. WAKR and WONE-FM were then transferred on December 6, 1993 to Gordon-Thomas Communications, Inc., headed by Thom Mandel, which also owned WQMX. The company changed its name to Rubber City Radio Group on the same day.
WAKR failed to catch on with the news/talk format, and Mandel himself felt a need to revert WAKR back to its full service format. In mid-1994, WAKR did just that, becoming a pop standards/talk hybrid with Bob Allen, Bob Friend and Christie Maxx during the daytime and national talk with Bruce Williams and Jim Bohannon
at night. In 1997, the station went back to talk, but on a more national scale with Gary Burbank
, The Fabulous Sports Babe
and ESPN Radio
programming eventually added into the schedule. News-intensive local programming was kept in both morning and afternoon drive.
In 1999, the station reverted back into a standards format with most music programming being satellite-based from Westwood One
, with its morning news program as the lone holdover of the previous format. Coincidentally, two of the Westwood One Adult Standards personalities that were heard on the station had local ties: format program director Chick Watkins was program director at WCUE
and WCUE-FM
from 1956 to 1970 (and also was program director for Cleveland
's WGAR from 1970 to 1982), while overnight voice Jerry Healey was WAKR's morning host in the late 60s and early 70s.
An all-local weekday lineup was officially unveiled on August 30, 2006. It features Ray Horner as host of the morning news program, Cleveland and Akron radio veteran Chuck Collins in middays, Tim Daugherty in afternoons, Debbie Golden in evenings, and James Lee in overnights. Dick Bartley
's Classic Countdown Show is heard on the weekends, while Bob Allen moved from afternoons to weekends before retiring in February 2010. With this change, WAKR's newscasts were also increased in terms of length and content. It was a key affiliate for Paul Harvey
up until Harvey's passing in March 2009.
In the fall of 2007, WAKR began to shift the music portion of its format from adult standards to Oldies
. Program director Chuck Collins told Radio & Records
in October that the station's evolution from standards to oldies would be complete by the end of the year http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebSite/NewsStoryPage.aspx?ContentID=2PPL5Fm91dA%3D&Version=1. The change helps fill the gap for the oldies format created in the Akron/Canton area by WHBC-AM's recent elimination of oldies music from its program schedule to become a news/talk station. WAKR commemorated their 70th anniversary in 2010 by revived many of their classic jingles from the 1960s and 1970s, while also airing montages and airchecks from past personalities.
One of WAKR's Sunday morning religious programs, "Uniform Faith" with the Furnace Street Mission, is the oldest continuing Christian radio program in the United States, originally airing on WADC
in 1926 http://www.furnacestreetmission.org/radioshow.html.
Akron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
. It is owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WONE-FM
WONE-FM
WONE-FM — branded 97.5 WONE — is a commercial album-oriented rock radio station licensed to Akron, Ohio that primarily serves the Akron radio market. Owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WAKR and WQMX...
and WQMX
WQMX
WQMX — branded FM 94.9 WQMX — is a commercial country radio station serving to the Akron, Ohio metro area. It is licensed to nearby Medina, Ohio and is owned by the Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WAKR and WONE-FM....
. The station features local news and talk in the morning, with an oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
format throughout the rest of the day.
WAKR has also been for many years the Akron affiliate for broadcasts of the Cleveland Indians
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since , they have played in Progressive Field. The team's spring training facility is in Goodyear, Arizona...
, Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
and Cleveland Cavaliers
Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers are a professional basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They began playing in the National Basketball Association in 1970 as an expansion team...
. Their news department (dubbed the "Akron Radio Center Newsroom" and "AkronNewsNow") also feeds drive-time news and traffic updates to sister stations WONE
WONE-FM
WONE-FM — branded 97.5 WONE — is a commercial album-oriented rock radio station licensed to Akron, Ohio that primarily serves the Akron radio market. Owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WAKR and WQMX...
and WQMX
WQMX
WQMX — branded FM 94.9 WQMX — is a commercial country radio station serving to the Akron, Ohio metro area. It is licensed to nearby Medina, Ohio and is owned by the Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WAKR and WONE-FM....
, updates the company's "AkronNewsNow" local news and information website http://www.akronnewsnow.com, and operates an all-news internet station dubbed "WAKRNewsNow" http://www.akronnewsnow.com/news/wakrnewsnow.asp.
History
The station began broadcasting on October 16, 1940, founded by S. Bernard Berk and licensed to his family owned business Summit Radio Corp. It became the Blue Network and then the ABC Radio affiliate for Akron, broadcasting with 5,000 wattWatt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s.
While crosstown rival WADC
Warf
Warf or WARF may refer to:* WARF, a radio station in Akron, Ohio, USA* Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, technology transfer office of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA* Warf, an artificial dwelling hill...
(now WARF
Warf
Warf or WARF may refer to:* WARF, a radio station in Akron, Ohio, USA* Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, technology transfer office of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA* Warf, an artificial dwelling hill...
) had the advantage of being a CBS affiliate with its popular network programs, WAKR built its reputation primarily through local programming, supplemented with an active news department. The local emphasis worked, and during WAKR's peak, in 1946 and 1947, Hooper ratings showed the station with as much as 60 percent of the Akron audience.
In 1945 Alan Freed
Alan Freed
Albert James "Alan" Freed , also known as Moondog, was an American disc-jockey. He became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll...
joined WAKR and became a local favorite, playing hot jazz and pop recordings. When he left the station, the non-compete clause in his contract limited its ability to find work elsewhere, and he was forced to take the graveyard shift at Cleveland's WJW radio where he eventually made history playing the music he called "Rock and Roll."
In 1946, Berk expanded ownership of Summit Radio Corp. by selling 45% to the Beacon Journal Publishing Co., publishers of the Akron Beacon Journal
Akron Beacon Journal
The Akron Beacon Journal is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States, and published by Black Press Ltd.. It is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper places a strong emphasis on local news and business...
. The newspaper company would continue to own a piece of Summit's operations for 30 years
http://12.100.23.254:8080/bj/news/2000/September/10/docs/031187.htm.
During the 1950s and 1960s WAKR was Akron's premier radio station. It operated as a very successful Top 40 station during the 1960s, competing with cross-town WHLO
WHLO
WHLO is an AM radio station in Akron, Ohio, USA, operating on 640 kHz, and owned by Clear Channel Communications.The station has a news/talk format with Jim Quinn's program from WPGB in Pittsburgh, and a schedule of syndicated talkers during the day, headed by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, with a...
. WAKR also started Akron's first FM station, WAKR-FM, in 1948. It changed to easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
WAEZ in the late 1960s, and became rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
WONE-FM
WONE-FM
WONE-FM — branded 97.5 WONE — is a commercial album-oriented rock radio station licensed to Akron, Ohio that primarily serves the Akron radio market. Owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WAKR and WQMX...
on January 1, 1985.
WAKR also started Akron's first television station WAKR-TV in 1953. Originally intended as a VHF licencee on channel 11, it wound up on channel 49 after an FCC imposed freeze on future VHF stations, as well as a merging of the Cleveland and Akron markets into one single market. The station moved to channel 23 in 1967, and was affiliated with ABC despite Cleveland's WEWS also holding an ABC affiliation. Many of WAKR's personalities shared airtime on the TV side throughout this time period; current afternoon host Tim Daugherty was a weatherman on WAKR-TV for many years. The TV station changed its callsign to WAKC-TV in 1986 when Group One was broken up, and it now known as Ion Television owned & operated station WVPX-TV, targeted to the Cleveland market.
Since taking to the air, WAKR has been the home to many personalities who would become national stars, among them film actors Lola Albright
Lola Albright
Lola Jean Albright is an American singer and actress.Albright worked as a model before moving to Hollywood. She began her motion picture career with a bit part in the 1948 film The Pirate, and followed it with an important role in the acclaimed 1949 hit Champion...
and Mark Stevens
Mark Stevens (actor)
-Career:Born Richard William Stevens in Cleveland, Ohio, he first studied to become a painter before becoming active in theater work. He then launched a radio career as an announcer in Akron, Ohio....
; radio names Peter Hackes, Scott Muni
Scott Muni
Scott Muni was an American disc jockey, who worked at the heyday of the AM Top 40 format and then was a pioneer of FM progressive rock radio.-Biography:...
and Charlie Greer
Charlie Greer
Charlie Greer was an American radio personality at WAKR in Akron, Ohio. At New York City's WABC Greer did middays and overnight. Given WABC's 50 thousand watt clear channel signal, Greer became a popular all-night disc jockey heard on more than 38 states punching his way through famous tongue...
; and the first host of TV's Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
Art Fleming
Art Fleming
Art Fleming was an American television host, most notably the original host of the TV game show Jeopardy!.-Early life:...
(known there as Art Fazzin).
Ownership of the Berk family broadcasting interests was organized as Group One Broadcasting around 1965 when it purchased WONE (AM)
WONE (AM)
WONE is an AM radio station in Dayton, Ohio operating on 980 kHz with a Sports Talk format. It carries programming from Fox Sports Radio, as well as the Jim Rome Show and the Dan Patrick Show .-History:The station took the air in 1949, licensed to Skyland Broadcasting Corp...
and WONE-FM (later WTUE
WTUE
WTUE is a classic rock formatted radio station with studios in Dayton, Ohio. Its transmitter is located in Moraine, Ohio and can be heard clearly throughout Southwest Ohio, including in Cincinnati....
) in Dayton
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
. It bought KBOX and KBOX-FM in Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
in 1967, and KLZ and KLZ-FM
KBPI
KBPI is an active rock radio station based in Denver, Colorado. The Clear Channel Communications outlet broadcasts with an effective radiated power of 100 kW and has a transmitter in Boulder, Colorado...
in Denver
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
in 1972. Summit Radio and Group One were dissolved in June 1986, and the station passed through four different owners in the next seven years. By then, WAKR was airing a full-service adult contemporary/pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
format.
WAKR along with WONE-FM and the other Group One stations were sold to DKM Broadcasting in June 1986 (WAKR's license was transferred in September 1986). DKM (Dyson Kissner-Moran) sold all of its properties, including other stations in Dayton, Dallas, Denver, Baltimore, Springfield and Lincoln, on January 1, 1988 for $200 million to Summit Communications Group
Summit Communications Group
The Summit Communications Group is an Atlanta-based communications company which once owned 16 radio stations around the United States. The company now concentrates on technology and internet services....
(which had no connection to Summit Radio, WAKR's previous owner).
Ownership passed to U.S. Radio headed by Ragan Henry on December 7, 1989. Not too long after the Gulf War in early 1992, WAKR abruptly dropped its standards format, and went into a news-talk format. It featured national hosts Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
and Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
, local talk hosts Bill Hall and Dave Milo, plus a morning-drive news program hosted by Bob Allen, the lone holdover from the previous format. WAKR and WONE-FM were then transferred on December 6, 1993 to Gordon-Thomas Communications, Inc., headed by Thom Mandel, which also owned WQMX. The company changed its name to Rubber City Radio Group on the same day.
WAKR failed to catch on with the news/talk format, and Mandel himself felt a need to revert WAKR back to its full service format. In mid-1994, WAKR did just that, becoming a pop standards/talk hybrid with Bob Allen, Bob Friend and Christie Maxx during the daytime and national talk with Bruce Williams and Jim Bohannon
Jim Bohannon
James E. "Jim" Bohannon is an American broadcaster who has worked in both television and radio.During the 1980s he was a fill-in for Larry King when King had his popular nighttime national radio program. He also does much work with the Smithsonian Associates...
at night. In 1997, the station went back to talk, but on a more national scale with Gary Burbank
Gary Burbank
Gary Burbank is an American radio personality. He was heard daily on WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio, from June 15, 1981 until December 21, 2007, when he signed off for the last time.-Career in Radio:...
, The Fabulous Sports Babe
The Fabulous Sports Babe
Nanci Donnellan, best known by her title of "The Fabulous Sports Babe," is an American sports radio broadcaster, currently broadcasting on WHBO in the Tampa Bay, Florida area. She is best known nationally for being syndicated across the United States on both ESPN Radio and ESPN2, from 1994 until 2001...
and ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio is an American sports radio network. It was launched on January 1, 1992 under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN." ESPN Radio is located at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut...
programming eventually added into the schedule. News-intensive local programming was kept in both morning and afternoon drive.
In 1999, the station reverted back into a standards format with most music programming being satellite-based from Westwood One
Westwood One
Westwood One was an American radio network and was based in New York City. At one time, it was managed by CBS Radio, the radio arm of CBS Corporation, and Viacom and was later purchased by the private equity firm The Gores Group...
, with its morning news program as the lone holdover of the previous format. Coincidentally, two of the Westwood One Adult Standards personalities that were heard on the station had local ties: format program director Chick Watkins was program director at WCUE
WCUE
WCUE is an AM radio station licensed to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, USA operating on 1150 kHz. It operates as a noncommercial educational station and serves the Akron, Ohio market. The station broadcasts the religious programming of Family Radio.-History:...
and WCUE-FM
WAKS
WAKS — branded 96.5 KISS-FM — is a commercial radio station licensed to Akron, Ohio broadcasting a pop/contemporary hit radio format. The station serves Cleveland, Akron and much of surrounding Northeast Ohio....
from 1956 to 1970 (and also was program director for Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
's WGAR from 1970 to 1982), while overnight voice Jerry Healey was WAKR's morning host in the late 60s and early 70s.
An all-local weekday lineup was officially unveiled on August 30, 2006. It features Ray Horner as host of the morning news program, Cleveland and Akron radio veteran Chuck Collins in middays, Tim Daugherty in afternoons, Debbie Golden in evenings, and James Lee in overnights. Dick Bartley
Dick Bartley
Dick Bartley, a popular American radio disc jockey since 21 June 1969, hosts several popular syndicated radio shows of the oldies/classic hits genre, including the current Classic Countdown since 1991 and the Saturday night call-in request show Rock & Roll's Greatest Hits since 1982...
's Classic Countdown Show is heard on the weekends, while Bob Allen moved from afternoons to weekends before retiring in February 2010. With this change, WAKR's newscasts were also increased in terms of length and content. It was a key affiliate for Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey Aurandt , better known as Paul Harvey, was an American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks. He broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments. His listening audience was estimated, at...
up until Harvey's passing in March 2009.
In the fall of 2007, WAKR began to shift the music portion of its format from adult standards to Oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
. Program director Chuck Collins told Radio & Records
Radio & Records
Radio & Records was a trade publication providing news and airplay information for the radio and music industries. It originally started out as an independent trade from 1973 to 2006 until VNU Media took over in 2006, up until its final issue in 2009.-History:The company was founded in 1973 and...
in October that the station's evolution from standards to oldies would be complete by the end of the year http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebSite/NewsStoryPage.aspx?ContentID=2PPL5Fm91dA%3D&Version=1. The change helps fill the gap for the oldies format created in the Akron/Canton area by WHBC-AM's recent elimination of oldies music from its program schedule to become a news/talk station. WAKR commemorated their 70th anniversary in 2010 by revived many of their classic jingles from the 1960s and 1970s, while also airing montages and airchecks from past personalities.
One of WAKR's Sunday morning religious programs, "Uniform Faith" with the Furnace Street Mission, is the oldest continuing Christian radio program in the United States, originally airing on WADC
Warf
Warf or WARF may refer to:* WARF, a radio station in Akron, Ohio, USA* Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, technology transfer office of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA* Warf, an artificial dwelling hill...
in 1926 http://www.furnacestreetmission.org/radioshow.html.