WEBC (560

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 ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

Duluth, Minnesota 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 serving the

Duluth-Superior The Duluth MN–WI Metropolitan Area, commonly called the Twin Ports, is a small metropolitan area centered around the cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. The Twin Ports are located at the western part of Lake Superior (the west ...

radio market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

. It is owned by

Townsquare Media Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wit ...

and it airs a

sports Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

branded as "Northland Fan". The studios and offices are on West Superior Street. The AM station feeds 250-

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), 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 quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

W293CT at 106.5

MHz 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 u ...

. While the FM station is limited in its coverage area, the AM station can be heard through much of Northeastern

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 Northwestern

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 ...

. It transmits with 5,000 watts around the clock. It uses a

directional antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna that radiates or receives greater radio wave power in specific directions. Directional antennas can radiate radio waves in beams, when greater concentration of radiation in a certain directio ...

with a three-

tower array A tower array is an arrangement of multiple radio towers which are mast radiators in a phased array. They were originally developed as ground-based tracking radars. Tower arrays can consist of free-standing or guyed towers or a mix of them. Tower ...

. 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 on Humane Society Road near

U.S. Route 2 U.S. Route 2 or U.S. Highway 2 (US 2) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway System, United States Numbered Highway spanning across the northern continental United States. US 2 consists of two segments connected ...

and

U.S. Route 53 U.S. Route 53, or U.S. Highway 53 (U.S. 53), is a north–south U.S. highway that runs for 404 miles (650 km) from La Crosse, Wisconsin to International Falls, Minnesota. It is the primary north–south route in northwestern Wisconsi ...

in the Parkland section of Superior.Radio-Locator.com/WEBC
/REF>

History

Early years

WEBC is the oldest radio station in the Duluth-Superior market, signing on the air on . It was founded by Leslie Ross, who owned Ross Electric Shop in Superior, Wisconsin. Ross ran WEBC as a hobby. It was funded on a "shoe-string budget" by proceeds from the store. WEBC was broadcast from a small top-floor room of the three-story Superior Evening Telegram newspaper building. On the roof were two towers, one on each end of the building, with the transmitting antenna hung between them, as was the manner of broadcast stations of the day. Ross's tower engineer was Walter C. Bridges. He helped WEBC sign on, using 50 watts of power. The studios moved from Superior to Duluth in 1926. They were on the second floor of the Spalding Hotel. The

city of license In U.S., 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 broadcast ...

was later changed to Duluth, though WEBC's transmitter has always remained on the Wisconsin side of the bridge. In its early years, WEBC broadcast on 1240

kilocycle The cycle per second is a once-common English name for the unit of frequency now known as the ''hertz'' (Hz). Cycles per second may be denoted by c.p.s., c/s, or, ambiguously, just "cycles" (Cyc., Cy., C, or c). The term comes from repetitive ph ...

Pres. Calvin Coolidge

The station was temporarily raised to 500 watts in 1928 in order to provide radio service to President

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously ...

, who was vacationing nearby. Charles B. Persons, who Ross hired at the age of 17 in 1926, produced and broadcast content that included details of Coolidge's activities, such as fishing on the Brule River in Wisconsin during his three-month vacation, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Coolidge touring the streets of Duluth by chauffeured motorcar to greet devoted supporters.

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

nicknamed WEBC "The President's Station." WEBC became an

affiliate Affiliation or affiliate may refer to: * Affiliate (commerce), a legal form of entity relationship used in Business Law * Affiliation (family law), a legal form of family relationship * Affiliate marketing * Affiliate network or affiliation platfo ...

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 ...

at this time to provide the vacationing president with coverage of the national political conventions. Persons continued to work for WEBC for 28 years, covering local and national news, sports, presidential administrations and wars. WEBC's owners founded WMFG in

Hibbing, Minnesota Hibbing is a city in St. Louis County, Minnesota, Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 16,214 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city was built on mining the rich iron ore of the Mesabi Iron Range an ...

, in 1935. The next year, the owners founded WHLB in

Virginia, Minnesota Virginia is a city in St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County, Minnesota, United States. With an economy heavily reliant on large-scale iron ore mining, Virginia is considered the Mesabi Iron Range's commercial center. The population was ...

. The three stations were linked for local programming as part of the Arrowhead Radio Network. WEBC's influence in regional programming was strengthened in 1942 when WMFG and WHLB switched to NBC from

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 ...

. WEBC and its NBC programming dominated the market in the 1930s and 1940s. Like most other stations 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 ...

", WEBC carried its network's dramas, comedies, news, sports,

soap opera A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...

game show A game show (or gameshow) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a game show host, host, who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating a ...

s 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. The station relocated to 560

in the mid-1950s after a series of upgrades and frequency changes. In 1955, with radio losing listeners to TV, WEBC dropped NBC and adopted a new format:

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 ...

. WEBC featured announcers such as Lance "Tac" Hammer, Jack McCoy, Lew Latto, Pat McKay, and "Doctor"

Don Rose Don Rose (born Donald Duane Rosenberg; July 5, 1934 – March 30, 2005), also known as "Dr. Donald D. Rose" or just "Dr. Don," was an American radio personality on KFRC AM 610 in San Francisco, California from October 1973 to 1986. Prior to join ...

, among many others.

FM and TV stations

Bridges was an early adopter of FM radio and created a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

in 1940,

WEBC-FM WEBC-FM (92.3 FM broadcasting, FM) was a radio station City of license, licensed to Superior, Wisconsin and which served the Duluth-Superior metropolitan area. History WEBC-FM began broadcasting on March 15, 1940, as what was then "the fart ...

. Unfortunately, few people owned FM receivers in that era and management doubted it could be made profitable. WEBC-FM went off the air in 1950. Bridges and the Head of the Lakes Broadcasting Company applied to construct a television station in June 1949. But that television station never was built. Instead,

WDSM WDSM (710 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Superior, Wisconsin, serving the Duluth-Superior area of Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin. WDSM is owned and operated by Midwest Communications and broadcasts a sports ...

710 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 710 kHz: 710 AM is a United States clear channel frequency. KIRO Seattle and WOR New York City share Class A status of 710 kHz. In Argentina * LRL202 in Buenos Aires. * LRA17 ...

and KDAL

610 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 610 kHz: The Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by ...

overcame their longtime rivalry by going into television first in 1953. WDSM-TV (now

KBJR-TV KBJR-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Superior, Wisconsin, United States, serving the Duluth, Minnesota, area as an affiliate of NBC and CBS. It is owned by Gray Media alongside CW+ affiliate KDLH (channel 3). The two stations ...

) became an

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

-TV affiliate, which contributed to WEBC's decision in 1955 to leave the NBC network.

Changes in ownership

WEBC's first ownership change came in 1958 when Bridges sold the station to George Clinton of Clarkesburg, West Virginia for $250,000. At the time of the purchase, Clinton also owned

WTMA WTMA (1250 AM broadcasting, AM), “News Talk 1250 WTMA”, is a commercial radio, commercial radio station City of license, licensed to Charleston, South Carolina. It has a talk radio, news/talk Radio format, format and is owned by Cumulus M ...

and WTMA-FM in Charleston. WEBC began carrying ABC Contemporary Radio Network newscasts in 1964. WEBC was a top-rated station until the mid-1970s, when FM began to attract more listeners. WEBC briefly switched to

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

and then tried an

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

format.

Talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

programming was added to the lineup by the late-1980s and took over the entire schedule by 1990.

Sports Radio and Classic Rock

The format was then changed to All-Sports in 2003 after a sale to

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a company founded by ...

. To supply programming, WEBC began carrying the syndicated "FAN" radio network from KFAN in

Minneapolis 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 ...

. After the station was sold to

GapWest Broadcasting Gap Broadcasting Group was a group of companies that owned around 116 broadcast stations (including 1 low-power television station and 5 low-power stations) in 23 radio markets in northwestern and central southern United States in the late 2000s. ...

in 2007, WEBC joined

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternatively branded platform-agnostically as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the banner "SportsRadio ESPN". The netw ...

, with "FAN" programming soon moving to rival KQDS

1490 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1490 kHz: 1490 AM is a Regional ( Class B) outside the coterminous 48 United States (Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico & U.S. Virgin Islands), and a Local ( Class C) frequency within the cont ...

. GapWest was folded into

on August 13, 2010. At 6 p.m. on September 30, 2015, WEBC dropped its sports format and began stunting with

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of Music genre, genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas and holiday season, Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of Christmas ...

, branded as "Ho Ho 106.5" (now simulcasting on FM translator W293CT 106.5 FM Duluth). At 1 p.m. on October 6, WEBC flipped to

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 ...

as "

Sasquatch Bigfoot (), also commonly referred to as Sasquatch (), is a large, hairy Mythic humanoids, mythical creature said to inhabit forests in North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.Example definitions include: *"A large, hairy, manlike ...

106.5" after a 23-hour marathon of the 1975 song "Bigfoot" by Bro Smith. On January 30, 2020, Townsquare Media announced that it would acquire WWAX 92.1 FM. Townsquare took over that station under a

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one corporation, company agrees to operate a radio station, radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it ...

(LMA) on February 1st. WEBC's classic rock format moved to WWAX as "Sasquatch 92.1". After a temporary simulcast, WWAX's former sports talk format moved to WEBC as "Fan 106.5" on February 17. That returned "Fan" network programming (now based at

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 ...

) to the station.Townsquare Media To Acquire WWAX Duluth And Move Sasquatch
/ref>

References

External links

FCC History Cards for WEBC
* *
A Technological History of WEBC Radio
{{coord, 46, 38, 43, N, 91, 59, 11, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title Radio stations in Duluth, Minnesota Radio stations in Superior, Wisconsin Townsquare Media radio stations Sports radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1924