WCCO (830

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transmi ...

station located in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, and owned by

Audacy, Inc. Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corp., it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning over 220 radio stations across 47 media ...

Its studios and offices are located on Second Avenue South in

Downtown Minneapolis Central is a defined community in Minneapolis that consists of six smaller official neighborhoods around the downtown and central business core. It also includes the many old flour mills, the Mill District, and other historical and industri ...

. WCCO features a

news/talk 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. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, interviews ...

format, with frequent newscasts and sports programming. Local hosts are heard most hours of the day and evening, including Chad Hartman, Vineeta Sawkar, Jordana Green, Adam Carter,

Jason DeRusha Jason DeRusha (born January 24, 1975) is an American journalist and radio host best known for his long tenure as a news anchor at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He is currently the host of the afternoon drive program on WCCO (AM), and is ...

and Lindsey Reiser. Late nights, three syndicated shows are carried: '' CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor, Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb'' and ''

America in the Morning ''America in The Morning'' is a news program airing on numerous talk radio stations, syndicated by Westwood One, a subsidiary of Cumulus Media. The one-hour live program airs weekdays at 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time and is hosted by John Tro ...

with John Trout''. World and national news is supplied by

CBS News Radio CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. It ...

. WCCO is the flagship radio station for the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The team is named afte ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

team. WCCO is a Class A

clear-channel station A clear-channel station is a North American AM radio station that has the highest level of protection from interference from other stations, particularly from nighttime skywave signals. This classification exists to ensure the viability of cross ...

. With 50,000 watts of power (the maximum permitted) and a nondirectional signal, WCCO reaches much of

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

and parts of

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

and

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

by day, along with a wide area of the Central United States and Central Canada at night. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

is located off Coon Rapids Boulevard at Lily Street NW in Coon Rapids. It is also heard on the second

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...

channel of co-owned

KMNB KMNB (102.9 MHz, "The Wolf") is a commercial radio, commercial FM radio station in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, that airs a country music radio format. It is owned by Audacy, Inc., with studios on Second Avenue South in Downtown Minneapolis. Along w ...

(102.9 FM).

History

Early years

WCCO first

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

the air on September 4, 1922, as WLAG, known as "the Call of the North". The studios were in the Oak Grove Hotel near

Loring Park Loring Park is a park in the Loring Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. History Loring Park was established in 1883 after the passage of the Park Act, which first created the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The park was firs ...

in Minneapolis. The station soon had financial trouble and closed in 1924. ''Washburn Crosby Company'', forerunner of

General Mills General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...

, took over the station and switched the

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 as ...

to WCCO for the company's initials. Broadcasts resumed less than two months later on October 2, 1924, from its current transmitter site in Coon Rapids, and with studios in the then-new Nicollet Hotel. In 1927, WCCO was one of the original 21 stations of the

NBC Red Network The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (also known as the NBC Red Network from 1927 to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in continuous operation from 1926 through 1999. Along with the NBC Blue Network, it wa ...

. It carried NBC's slate of dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows, and

big-band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

broadcasts during the "

Golden Age of Radio The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the earl ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

bought WCCO from General Mills in 1932, and switched its

network affiliation In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or al ...

to the

CBS Radio Network CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. It ...

. It remains a CBS affiliate.

1950s to the 1990s

In 1952, CBS sold majority control of WCCO to the Murphy and McNally families, who formed

Midwest Radio and Television The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

as a holding company for WCCO radio and its new co-owned television station, Channel 4

WCCO-TV WCCO-TV (channel 4), branded CBS Minnesota, is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, serving the Twin Cities area. It is owned and operated by the CBS television network through its CBS News and Stations divisi ...

. CBS was forced to sell off its stake in the WCCO stations in 1954 due to

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

ownership limits in effect at the time. CBS reacquired the WCCO stations outright in 1992 when Midwest Radio and Television merged with the network. In the 1950s, as network programming was shifting from radio to television, WCCO switched to a full-service middle-of-the-road format, including popular music, news, sports, and talk.

Robert Ridder Robert Blair Ridder (July 21, 1919 – June 24, 2000) was an American ice hockey administrator, media businessman, and philanthropist. He was the founding president of the Minnesota Amateur Hockey Association, and managed the United States m ...

became president of WCCO in 1952. In the 1980s, the

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player, either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs that can be played once or in a loop. ...

shifted from middle-of-the-road music toward

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 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

. The music was gradually phased out by the early 1990s, when the format was changed to news, talk, and sports. From 1947 to 1996, WCCO and WCCO-TV won 12

George Foster Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in ...

s, more than any other Twin Cities broadcast outlet.

Signal and transmitter

In the early days of radio, WCCO was a powerful force in the development of better and more powerful transmitters. On November 11, 1928, with the implementation of the

Federal Radio Commission The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was a government agency that regulated United States radio communication from its creation in 1927 until 1934, when it was succeeded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FRC was established by ...

General Order 40 The Federal Radio Commission's (FRC) General Order 40, dated August 30, 1928, described the standards for a sweeping reorganization of radio broadcasting in the United States. This order grouped the AM radio band transmitting frequencies into thre ...

, WCCO changed its frequency to 810 kHz and was granted clear-channel status. It began broadcasting with 50,000 watts for the first time in September 1932. In the 1930s, two additional 300-foot towers were added to increase the range of the station's signal. WCCO constructed a new 654-foot tower in Coon Rapids in 1939. This is the same tower used today, although the broadcast frequency was changed to 830 kHz as a result of the 1941

North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA, ; ) refers to a series of international treaties that defined technical standards for AM band (mediumwave) radio stations. These agreements also addressed how frequency assignments were d ...

-. Due to the station's power, as well as Minnesota's mostly flat landscape (with near-perfect

ground conductivity Ground conductivity refers to the electrical conductivity of the subsurface of the earth. In the International System of Units (SI) it is measured in millisiemens per meter (mS/m). Radio propagation Ground conductivity is an extremely important ...

), WCCO boasts one of the largest coverage areas in the country, with a footprint equivalent to that of a full-power FM station. During the day, it provides at least secondary coverage to most of Minnesota's densely populated area (as far north as

Duluth Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

and as far south as Rochester), plus portions of northern

and western

. Under the right conditions, it reaches into portions of

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

. At night, the station's signal typically reaches across 28 U.S. states and three

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

s. Certain conditions can make the signal reach much farther. Legendary station personality Howard Viken said that he once picked up the station while he was in the military during World War II, stationed at

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomons by area and the second- ...

in 1943.

Severe weather coverage

WCCO has a longtime reputation of being the station to tune in for emergency information, especially severe weather and school closings in winter. Listeners would call in during severe weather events and describe what they were seeing at their locations, supplementing information from the National Weather Service. For many years, WCCO was famous for its "klaxon" alert tone for tornado warnings. WCCO is the Primary Entry Point station for the

Emergency Alert System The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a Emergency population warning, national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via Cable television, cable ...

in Minnesota. For a series of live public-service emergency broadcasts in 1965 – the St. Patrick's Day blizzard, the record April floods on the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, and the May 6 onslaught of 24 tornado touchdowns in the Twin Cities area – the station earned the George Foster Peabody, DuPont, and Sigma Delta Chi awards.

Changes in ratings

WCCO was the top-rated station in the Twin Cities for decades until shifting

demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

s and a decline in listening to AM radio caused a drop in the

Arbitron Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by mergin ...

and

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

. Several FM stations, including

classic rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

92.5

KQRS-FM KQRS-FM (92.5 FM broadcasting, FM) is a radio station City of license, licensed to Golden Valley, Minnesota. Owned by Cumulus Media, it broadcasts a mainstream rock format serving the Minneapolis–Saint Paul market. Its studios are located ...

and

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

101.3

KDWB-FM KDWB-FM (101.3 MHz) is an commercial radio station broadcasting in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces o ...

were able to overtake it. One sign of the changing times: the well-known farm report was dropped in early 2004, reflecting the fact that many farmers began to rely more on the Internet for such information and that the number of farmers in Minnesota has drastically shrunk since the station first began broadcasting (although agriculture remains vital to the region). In August 2008, as a cosmetic change to make WCCO in sync with other CBS talk radio stations, the station changed from "News/Talk 8•3•0 WCCO" to "News Radio 8•3•0 WCCO". On September 15, 2011, WCCO was awarded the NAB Marconi Radio Award for Large Market Station of the Year.

Sports

WCCO became the radio home of

Minnesota Timberwolves The Minnesota Timberwolves (often referred to as the Wolves or T-wolves) are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Timberwolves compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Divisio ...

basketball team starting with the 2011–2012 season, acquiring the broadcast rights from rival KFAN. The Timberwolves would leave WCCO after the 2022–2023 season, moving their games to the

iHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast, radio streaming and Music Streaming platform owned by iHeartMedia. Founded in August 2008, iHeartRadio serves as the national umbrella brand for iHeart ...

app with select games on

KFXN-FM KFXN-FM (100.3 Hertz, MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, broadcasting a sports talk radio format, format. The station is owned by iHeartMedia, and serves the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Twin Cities market. KF ...

. WCCO started broadcasting University of St. Thomas football beginning in the 2011–2012 season. The St. Thomas football broadcasts would be carried on WCCO until the 2019–2020 season with no season in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. With the move to Division I starting in the 2021 season, the football games would move to KSTP. WCCO was the former home of

Minnesota Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college athletics, college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 21 (9 men's, 12 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and com ...

athletics and

Minnesota Wild The Minnesota Wild are a professional ice hockey team based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Wild compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Confer ...

hockey. WCCO had been the radio

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, 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 ...

of the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. Founded in 1960 as ...

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...

from 1961 to 1969, 1976 to 1984, 1988 to 1990, and 1996 to 2000. WCCO broadcast

baseball from their arrival in the Twin Cities in 1961 until 2007. In 2007, the Twins began producing the games themselves while selling Twin Cities broadcast rights to KSTP beginning in the 2007 season. On November 17, 2017, WCCO announced that Twins broadcasts would return to the station beginning in the 2018 season.

Entercom ownership

On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio agreed to merge with

Entercom Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corp., it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning over 220 radio stations across 47 media ...

. The sale was conducted using a

Reverse Morris Trust A Reverse Morris Trust is the term for a type of financial transaction in United States law that combines a divisive reorganization (spin-off) with an acquisitive reorganization ( statutory merger) to allow a tax-free transfer (in the guise of a m ...

to shield the deal from taxes. While CBS shareholders retain a 72% ownership stake in the combined company, Entercom was the surviving entity, with WCCO Radio no longer being co-owned with WCCO-TV. The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on November 17. In 2018, WCCO returned to the moniker "News/Talk 8•3•0 WCCO" with its logo reflecting the change.

AM stereo history

After nearly a year of work to outfit the station and prepare programming in stereo, on October 2, 1985, WCCO began broadcasting in

AM stereo AM stereo is a term given to a series of mutually incompatible techniques for radio broadcasting stereo audio in the AM band in a manner that is compatible with standard AM receivers. There are two main classes of systems: independent sideban ...

using the

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

C-QUAM C-QUAM (Compatible QUadrature Amplitude Modulation) is the method of AM stereo broadcasting used in Canada, the United States and most other countries. It was invented in 1977 by Norman Parker, Francis Hilbert, and Yoshio Sakaie, and published in ...

system. The move by the large market dominating WCCO to adopt AM stereo received attention from local and national news outlets. WCCO discontinued broadcasting in AM stereo around the turn of the millennium.

HD Radio

In 2005, WCCO began broadcasting its signal in the

format.https://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?id=16 HD Radio Guide for Minneapolis-St. Paul WCCO programming is also

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of 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, simultaneously) ...

on 102.9 KMNB-HD2. In March 2018, WCCO shut down its HD Radio signal on AM 830.

Notable alumni

* Cedric Adams * Steve Cannon * Herb Carneal * Sid Hartman *

Eleanor Mondale Eleanor Jane Mondale Poling (January 19, 1960 – September 17, 2011) was an American radio personality, television host, actress, and political activist. Biography Mondale was the only daughter of Joan Mondale and former Vice President W ...

* Tim Russell * Ray Scott

References

* (2001).
Radio and Television.
A History of Minneapolis. Minneapolis Public Library. Retrieved November 15, 2018.

City of Coon Rapids. Retrieved September 25, 2004.

External links

* * *