WFDF (AM)

WFDF (910 AM, "910 AM Superstation") is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Farmington Hills, Michigan, and serving Metro Detroit. The station is owned and operated by Kevin Adell (via his company Adell Radio Group), who also owns the market's MyNetworkTV affiliate WADL and religious broadcaster The Word Network. It airs a conservative talk radio format with studios and offices on West Ten Mile Road in Southfield, Michigan.

WFDF is a Class B station broadcasting on a regional (not clear-channel) frequency. By day, WFDF transmits with 50,000 watts, the maximum for AM stations in the United States. To avoid interference to other stations on 910 AM, it reduces power at night to 25,000 watts. It uses a directional antenna with an eight- tower array. The transmitter site is on Maxwell Road in Carleton, Michigan. WFDF transmits in HD and is also simulcast on the second digital subchannel of WOMC.

Programming

Most of WFDF's schedule is nationally syndicated talk programs. Weekdays begin with '' The Michael DelGiorno Show''. That's followed by '' The Glenn Beck Radio Program, The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, The Sean Hannity Show, Common Sense with Bill O'Reilly, The Jesse Kelly Show'' and '' Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb''.

On weekends, WFDF has specialty shows on money, technology, home repair and religion. Syndicated weekend programs include '' At Home with Gary Sullivan, Rich DeMuro on Tech, The Weekend with Michael Brown, The Todd Herman Show, The Ben Ferguson Show, The Cat's Roundtable with John Catsimatidis, The Jesus Christ Show with Neil Saavedra'' and '' The Larry Kudlow Show''. Most hours begin with an update from ABC News Radio.

History

WEAA and WFDF

The station is one of the oldest in Michigan, first licensed on May 25, 1922. Its original call sign was WEAA and it was located in Flint. It made its first broadcast on . The call letters were changed to WFDF in 1925, in honor of the founder of the station, Frank D. Fallain (1890–1968).

For many years the station featured a full service, middle of the road format of popular adult music, news and sports, targeting Flint. It experimented with a Top 40 hits format (using the nickname "Giant 91") for a time in the early 1970s, but the station shifted its music mix back toward adult contemporary by 1975. In the 1980s, as listeners moved to FM to hear contemporary music, WFDF became an adult standards station aimed at older demographics.

The music ended and the station flipped to talk radio in 1993. In 2001, the station was acquired by Cumulus Broadcasting.

Move to Detroit market

In 2002, Cumulus sold the station to ABC Radio, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Corporation. On August 15, at 3:49pm, the station began featuring children's radio programming from Radio Disney. In 2003, Disney began preparations to move WFDF to the more lucrative Detroit radio market. It announced plans for a new eight-tower array in Monroe County, south of Detroit. Originally, Disney applied to use the new site only for daytime operation with Flint in the northwest corner of the proposed daytime coverage area. It would continue using the existing transmitter site in Burton, east of Flint, during nighttime hours. (Providing an interference-free nighttime signal to Flint from the Monroe County site, without exceeding the 50,000 watt maximum power limit, would have been practically impossible.) Shortly after WFDF started broadcasting with this two-site operation, Disney applied to change WFDF's city of license to Farmington Hills, a Detroit suburb, with 50,000 watts of daytime power and 25,000 watts at night, both from the Monroe County site.

For this change to take place, two radio stations operating at AM 900 that would have interfered with a relocated WFDF had to be deleted. Disney purchased the AM license of WFRO in Fremont, Ohio, while its FM sister station was spun off to a new owner. In Gaylord, Michigan, WSNQ went silent shortly after its FM station, WMJZ, was spun off to a new owner. With the two AM 900 stations now silenced, this paved the way for WFDF to substantially increase its power and move into the more profitable Detroit radio market.

The new array still covers Flint with a city-grade signal during daytime hours. The FCC granted a license for the new facilities in January 2006. The city of license changed in February 2006. The former towers in Burton were taken down and dismantled in April 2006.

The station's office is located in Southfield, moving away from Genesee County in the spring of 2006.

Change in ownership

On August 13, 2014, Disney put WFDF and 22 other Radio Disney stations up for sale, to focus on digital distribution of the network.

On November 18, the Radio Disney Group (the Disney subsidiary that held the license of the station) filed to sell WFDF to Adell Radio Group, Inc., an affiliate of The Word Network, owned by Kevin Adell. Adell also owns TV station WADL channel 38.

On January 20, 2015, The Word Network closed on the purchase of 910 AM at a price of $3 million. It changed the programming to its Christian talk and teaching format. The changeover took place with no prior announcement at 5 p.m. on January 20.

On November 9, 2015, Adell re-launched WFDF as "the Superstation", with an African American talk radio format. The station later carried ESPN Radio sports programming in the overnight hours.

On August 11, 2023, Adell suddenly announced that the station would rebrand to an " all-sports format" with a local morning show host to be named, though several media outlets speculated that Adell's financial issues (including the attempted sale of WADL to Mission Broadcasting) was a part of him selling off assets during a personal financial crisis. At this time, the station began to carry Fox Sports Radio full-time.

Flip to conservative talk

After a few weeks, plans changed. On September 1, 2023, Adell Media announced that WFDF would end its brief run at sports and would flip to a conservative talk format on September 5. It would feature a local morning show hosted by Justin Barclay (formerly of WOOD in Grand Rapids). The station would also carry most of the standard Premiere Networks syndicated talk schedule, including Glenn Beck, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton and Jesse Kelly, along with several other syndicated programs. '' The Sean Hannity Show'' would move from Salem Communications-owned talk station 1400 WDTK to WFDF.

The format change placed WFDF in direct competition with conservative talk rival WDTK. WFDF has an advantage over WDTK in terms of signal coverage area. WFDF has a 50,000-watt daytime signal and 25,000 watts at night. It reaches from Monroe through Genesee counties, covering nearly the entire Southeast Michigan radio market and into the city of Flint. Meanwhile, WDTK, with its 1,000 watt signal and its 99-watt FM translator, have coverage that is limited to the densely populated areas of Northern Wayne, and southern Oakland and Macomb Counties.

Former personnel

WFDF formerly had a thirty-person staff during Adell's ownership. In the fall of 2017, the station hired reporters Andre Ash, '' Detroit News'' editorial page editor Nolan Finley, and Steve Neavling, editor and publisher of the investigative news site MotorCityMuckraker.com.

On October 5, 2016, morning show host Ralph Godbee quit in the middle of his show because of a content dispute over programming conflicts the two had regarding the Word Network.

See also

* Media in Detroit

Notes

References

External links

The Official 910 AM Superstation website


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20141120180717/http://www.radioworld.com/article/disney-am-in-detroit-brings--million/273354 WFDF sold for 3m USD

{{Sports Radio Stations in Michigan

FDF
Radio stations established in 1922
1922 establishments in Michigan
Talk radio stations in the United States
Conservative talk radio