WOR (710 AM) is a 50,000-

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...

class A clear-channel AM

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

owned by

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and licensed to

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. The station airs a mix of local and syndicated

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featu ...

shows, primarily from co-owned

Premiere Networks Premiere Networks (formerly Premiere Radio Networks, shortened as PRN) is an American media company, a wholly owned subsidiary of iHeartMedia, for which it currently serves as its main original radio content distribution and production arm. ...

, including ''

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show ''The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show'' is an American radio program hosted by former Fox Sports Radio personality Clay Travis and former '' America Now/The Buck Sexton Show'' host Buck Sexton. It is broadcast on over 400 talk radio stations ...

'', '' The Sean Hannity Show'', and '' Coast to Coast AM with George Noory''. '' CBS Eye on the World'' with John Batchelor, from CBS Audio Network is heard at night. Since 2016, the station has served as the New York outlet for co-owned NBC News Radio. The station's studios are located in the Tribeca neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

at the former AT&T Building, with its

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

in Rutherford, New Jersey. WOR began broadcasting on Wednesday, February 22, 1922, and is one of the oldest continuously operating radio stations in the United States with a three–letter

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally ass ...

, characteristic of a station dating from the 1920s. WOR is the only New York City station to have retained its original three-letter call sign, making those the oldest continuously used call letters in the New York City area.

History

Bamberger's Department Store

WOR's original owner was Bamberger's Department Store in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

. In the early 1920s the store was selling radio receivers and wanted to put a radio station on the air to help promote receiver sales, as well as for general publicity. Effective December 1, 1921, the U.S. Department of Commerce set aside a single wavelength, 360 meters (833 kilohertz), for radio stations to broadcast "entertainment" programs. The store applied for a license which was granted on February 20, 1922, with the randomly assigned call sign of WOR. The station's original

city of license In American, Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator. In North American b ...

was Newark. The station made its debut broadcast on February 22, 1922, from a studio located on an upper floor of the store. A 250-watt De Forest

was constructed on the roof of the department store. The station's first broadcast was made with a homemade microphone constructed by attaching a megaphone to a telephone mouthpiece. Al Jolson's " April Showers" was the first record played on WOR.

750 to 710 kHz

Three other broadcasting stations were already on the air in the region transmitting on 360 meters: WJZ, also in Newark, operated by the Radio Corporation of America ( RCA); WNO, operated by '' The Jersey Journal'' newspaper in Jersey City; and WDT, owned by the Ship Owners Radio Service in the Stapleton section of

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...

. The use of the common wavelength required a time-sharing agreement between the stations designating transmitting hours. This soon became complicated, for by June a total of ten regional stations were using 360 meters. This restricted the number of hours available to WOR, which was now limited to just a few hours per week. In September 1922 the Department of Commerce set aside a second entertainment wavelength, 400 meters (750 kHz), for "Class B" stations that had quality equipment and programming. In the New York City region, WOR, along with two New York City

American Telephone & Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

(AT&T) stations, WBAY and WEAF (now WFAN), were assigned to this new wavelength. Additional "Class B" broadcasting frequencies were announced in May 1923, including three for the Newark/New York City area. WOR moved to 740 kHz, where it shared time with WDT (which shut down by the end of the year) and a new RCA station, WJY. WJY rarely used the time periods assigned to it, and by the summer of 1926, WOR began operating full-time, stating that the silent WJY was considered to have forfeited its hours. In June 1927, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) moved WOR to 710 kHz, which it has occupied ever since. On November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the FRC's General Order 40, this assignment was designated a " clear channel" frequency, with WOR the dominant station.

Manhattan studios and Mutual Broadcasting

In December 1924, although still licensed to Newark, WOR opened a second studio in Manhattan to originate programs, so that stars of the day based in New York City would have better access to the station. Later in 1926, WOR left its original New York City studio on the 9th floor of Chickering Hall at 27 West 57th Street. It relocated to 1440 Broadway, two blocks from Times Square. WOR was a charter member of the CBS Radio Network (CBS), acting as the

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the ...

of the 16 stations that aired the first Columbia Broadcasting System network program on September 18, 1927. In 1934, WOR in partnership with

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

radio station WGN, and

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

radio station WLW, formed the

Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. ra ...

and became its New York City flagship station. Mutual was one of the "Big Four" national radio networks in the United States during the 1930s–1980s. In 1941, the station changed its city of license from Newark to New York City. In 1957, WOR ended its relationship with Mutual and became an independent station. However, the station continued to carry Mutual's "Top of the News" with Fulton Lewis for 15 minutes each evening, Monday–Friday at 7:00 p.m. for several more years. On April 30, 2005, WOR moved from its offices and studios at 1440 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, where it had been based for 79 years. It relocated to a new facility at 111 Broadway near Wall Street in the Financial District. After the station was acquired by Clear Channel Communications in 2012, it moved to its current location at Clear Channel's studios on Avenue of The Americas in Tribeca.

FM and TV stations

In 1941, WOR put an FM radio station, W71NY, on the air. WOR had been experimenting with FM broadcasts as W2XWI from its Carteret, New Jersey, transmitter site from 1938. For most of its first two decades, W71NY, later WOR-FM, largely

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simul ...

the same programming as WOR. In 1949, WOR signed on a sister television station, Channel 9 WOR-TV. It started as an

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...

, showing mostly movies and reruns of network shows, with some local children's and talk programs. In 1952, WOR-AM-FM-TV were sold to RKO General. The TV station later became

WWOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW ...

, relocated to

Secaucus, New Jersey Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,WEPN-FM.

Full service radio to talk

From the 1930s to the early 1980s, WOR was described as a

full service radio {{Unreferenced, date=October 2008 Full service (also known as hometown radio) is a type of radio format; the format is characterized by a mix of music programming (usually drawing from formats such as adult contemporary, country, or oldies) and ...

station, featuring a mix of music, talk and news. There was an emphasis on news reports and talk programs, but music was played as well, usually a blend of pop standards and

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

tunes, often described as middle of the road music (MOR). WOR played several songs per hour weekday mornings from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and again afternoons from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. WOR also featured music on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. In ratings reports, WOR was classified as an "MOR/Talk" station until 1984. From 1983 to about 1985, WOR gradually eliminated music altogether, evolving into its current talk format.

Noted hosts

Past notable hosts include Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald, Arlene Francis, Long John Nebel, Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy,

Bernard Meltzer Bernard C. Meltzer (May 2, 1916 – March 25, 1998) was a United States radio host for several decades. His advice call-in show, "What's Your Problem?," aired from 1967 until the mid-1990s on stations WCAU-AM and WPEN-AM in Philadelphia, ...

, Barry Farber, Jean Shepherd,

Bob and Ray Bob and Ray were an American comedy duo whose career spanned five decades, composed of comedians Bob Elliott (1923–2016) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990). The duo's format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such ...

, Bob Grant and Gene Klavan. From April 15, 1945, to March 21, 1963, newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen and her husband Dick Kollmar co-hosted a late morning show on WOR called ''Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick''. WOR's morning show ''

Rambling with Gambling ''Rambling with Gambling'' was a news and talk radio program that aired in New York City from 1925 through 2016, almost uninterrupted, with one name change toward the end of its run. It was hosted by three generations of people named John Gambling ...

'' aired every weekday morning on the station, from March 1925 to September 2000, across three generations of hosts:

John B. Gambling John Bradley Gambling (April 9, 1897 – November 21, 1974) was an American radio personality. He was a member of the Gambling family, 3 generations of whom—John B., John A. and John R.—were hosts of WOR Radio's ( New York City, 710 AM) morn ...

, his son

John A. Gambling John Alfred Gambling (February 5, 1930 – January 8, 2004) was an American radio personality. He was a member of the Gambling family, three generations of whom - John B., John A. and John R. - were hosts of WOR Radio's (New York City, 710 AM) mo ...

, and his grandson John R. Gambling. After John R. Gambling's edition of the show was dropped, he moved to 770 WABC, where he hosted a late-morning show until January 2008. He returned to WOR mornings in May 2008. Although never aimed at young listeners, WOR was this group's radio station of record in the New York metropolitan area during bad winter weather. Students of all ages dialed up 710 AM on their radios as the Gamblings dutifully announced a comprehensive list of school closings for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, in strict alphabetical order. John R. Gambling later hosted middays on 970 WNYM for several years, after retiring from WOR in December 2013.

News department

For many years the station aired detailed, 15-minute news reports on the hour. Newscasters Henry Gladstone, Harry Hennessey, Jack Allen, John Wingate, Lyle Vann, Peter Roberts, Ed Walsh, Shelly Strickler, Sam Hall and Roger Skibenes were some of the on-air members of the news department. Joe Bartlett is WOR's current news director and morning news anchor, having held that position since 1986. WOR introduced live, on-air, helicopter traffic reports with pilot-reporters "Fearless" Fred Feldman and George Meade. On January 10, 1969, fill-in pilot/reporter Frank McDermott died when the WOR helicopter crashed into an apartment building in

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeas ...

as he was broadcasting a traffic update. The building caught fire and McDermott's body was found nearby. Beginning in October 2011, WOR extended its partnership with

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's v ...

beyond hourly national news updates to include live simulcasts of '' NBC Nightly News'' and ''

Meet the Press ''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television Sunday morning talk shows, news/interview program broadcast on NBC. It is the List of longest-running television shows by category, longest-running program on American television, though the curr ...

''.

New Jersey transmitters

Beginning in 1935, WOR's transmitter was in Carteret, New Jersey. The site used two steel lattice towers and a steel cable as a third radiating element. The cable hung from a catenary connected to the top of each of the towers. This created a lopsided figure-8 pattern intended to cover both the New York City and Philadelphia markets, making WOR the first 50,000 watt directional station in the U.S. Over the years, construction affected WOR's signal strength and WOR sought a new location. Circa 1966, the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) issued a

construction permit Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

for a new location in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. That location features three full half-wave (692 feet) guyed antennas in a triangular array. WOR was within one mile of both

AM 1190 The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1190 kHz: 1190 AM is a United States and Mexican clear-channel frequency. KEX in Portland, Oregon, and XEWK in Guadalajara, Mexico, share Class A status of 1190 kHz. WOWO, in ...

WLIB and

AM 1010 The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1010 kHz: 1010 AM is a Canadian clear-channel frequency. CFRB Toronto and CBR Calgary are both Class A, 50,000 watt stations. In Argentina * LV16 Rio Cuarto in Rio Cuarto, Córdoba ...

WINS. Thus each WOR tower hosted AM detuning apparatus to prevent adverse distortion of WINS and WLIB radiation patterns. Built on hydraulic landfill, the site provides excellent ground conductivity for daytime groundwave radiation. At night when conditions are favorable, WOR could be picked up, using very sensitive radio receivers, in parts of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. It shares Class A status on 710 kHz with

KIRO Kiro was a colonial post in what is now the Central Equatoria province of South Sudan on the west side of the Bahr al Jebel or White Nile river. It was in part of the Lado enclave. In 1900 there were said to be 1,500 troops from the Congo Free S ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

. WOR and KIRO must protect each other against interference by using directional antennas. On September 8, 2006, WOR moved its transmitter a short distance to Rutherford, New Jersey, near the Western Spur of the

New Jersey Turnpike The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP) is a system of controlled-access highways in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The turnpike is maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA).The Garden State Parkway, although maintained by NJTA, is not cons ...

Clear Channel Communications

On August 13, 2012, it was announced that WOR was to be purchased by Clear Channel Communications (now

), pending FCC approval. A local marketing agreement began on August 15, 2012. On December 20, 2012, the day Clear Channel officially took ownership of the station, ''The Dr. Joy Browne Show'', ''The Gov. David Paterson Show'', and ''The Mike Huckabee Show'' were removed from the WOR program schedule.

Adding new shows

On January 2, 2013, WOR added former WABC weekend host Mark Simone to its weekday morning line up. WOR offers ten hours of live and local programming on weekdays, with syndicated programs heard the rest of the day. Weekends feature mostly paid brokered programming on health, money, real estate and other topics. In late 2014, after WOR cancelled the hot talk '' Elliot in the Morning'' show, simulcast from iHeart

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial ...

station WWDC in Washington, D.C., former

WNBC WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo stati ...

sportscaster Len Berman and Tampa Bay area radio host Todd Schnitt were hired as the station's morning hosts. Schnitt left WOR in October 2017, while Berman continued with guest co-hosts in the 6:00a.m.–10:00a.m. slot. A new co-host, NY Post Broadway columnist, Michael Riedel, was added in 2018. Riedel had been a regular contributor to the "Imus In the Morning" show. On January 1, 2014, both the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity shows were transferred from rival talk radio station WABC, owned by Cumulus Media. Since Premiere Networks, owned by iHeartMedia, syndicates both shows, the shows were brought in-house to WOR to boost the station's ratings and retain revenue. Limbaugh died in February 2021, and the show was succeeded by the duo of Clay Travis and Buck Sexton in June 2021.

Mets baseball

On November 4, 2013, WOR and the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major lea ...

announced the team's games would be broadcast on 710 AM, as well as advertised on all local Clear Channel radio stations, beginning with the 2014 baseball season. To act as a lead-in to the Mets, sportscaster Pete McCarthy was given an early evening show called "The Sports Zone." The relationship with the Mets lasted through the 2018 season, after which the team announced a new seven-year agreement with Entercom to air games on WCBS 880 AM. McCarthy's show was also discontinued.Forbes.com "Mets Move Radio Broadcasts to WCBS-Entercom" Sept. 18, 2018 (retrieved 1-19-19)
/ref>

WOR Radio Network

WOR was once the flagship station of the now-defunct WOR Radio Network. The network distributed nationally syndicated programming, all from the WOR studios at 111 Broadway in New York. Following the sale of WOR to Clear Channel Communications, what was left of the WOR Radio Network was folded into Premiere Networks, Clear Channel's syndication wing.

Past WOR personalities

Past notable WOR program hosts and newscasters included these personalities. * Lou Adler * Glenn Beck * Dr. Joy Browne *

Gene Burns Gene Burns (December 3, 1940 – May 25, 2013) was an American talk radio host. He hosted ''Dining Around with Gene Burns'', a food wine and travel program, which aired Saturdays on NewsTalk 810 AM in San Francisco. He also hosted ''The Gene Bu ...

* Jerome Alan Danzig * Uncle Don Carney * Jay Diamond * Rocco DiSpirito * Lou Dobbs * Jerry Doyle * Warren Eckstein * Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding (''

'') * Jinx Falkenburg and Tex McCrary (''Tex and Jinx'') * Barry Farber * Pegeen Fitzgerald * Arlene Francis *

Joe Franklin Joe Franklin (March 9, 1926 – January 24, 2015), born Joseph Fortgang, was an American radio and television host personality, author and actor from New York City. Franklin is noted for having the first talk show and inventing the format. His te ...

* Carlton Fredericks * Arthur Frommer * Mike Gallagher *

* John R. Gambling * Henry Gladstone * Lisa Glasberg (Lisa G) * Bob Grant * Barry Gray * Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy *

Donna Hanover Donna Hanover (born Donna Ann Kofnovec; February 15, 1950) is an American journalist, radio and television personality, television producer, and actress, who appears on CUNY TV in New York City. From 1994 through 2001 she was First Lady of New ...

* Ellis Henican * Gene Klavan * Walter Kiernan * Dorothy Kilgallen and Richard Kollmar (''Dorothy and Dick'') * Lionel * Jim Lounsbury * Mary Margaret McBride * Bernarr Macfadden * Steve Malzberg *

Dennis Miller Dennis Michael Miller (born November 3, 1953) is an American talk show host, political commentator, sports commentator, actor, and comedian. He was a cast member of '' Saturday Night Live'' from 1985 to 1991, and he subsequently hosted a str ...

* Long John Nebel * Bill O'Reilly *

David Paterson David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer and serving out nearly three years of Spitzer's term from March 2008 to December 2010. A ...

James Randi James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Rodrigues 2010 ...

* Joey Reynolds *

Joan Rivers Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona—heavi ...

Thurman Ruth Thurman Ruth (also Therman Ruth, Thermon Ruth and T. Ruth) (March 6, 1914 – September 13, 2002), who got his start in vaudeville in 1927, was a gospel singer, deejay and concert promoter, and a forefather of such rhythm and blues (R&B) produ ...

* Michael Savage * Jay Severin * Jean Shepherd * Michael Smerconish *

Michael Strange Blanche Marie Louise Oelrichs (October 1, 1890 – November 5, 1950) was an American poet, playwright and theatre actress. Oelrichs first used the masculine pen name Michael Strange to publish her poetry in order to distance her society rep ...

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

References

External links

* *
WOR AM History

WOR News Historical Profile & Interviews - 1978

Roger Bower papers
at the University of Maryland libraries. Bower was a producer, director, actor, and sound engineer on WOR (AM) from 1928 to 1970.