WGOW (1150

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 ...

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

. It is owned by

Cumulus Media Cumulus Media, Inc. is a broadcasting company of the United States and is the second largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States ahead of Audacy and behind iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdi ...

, and broadcasts 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. Cumulus also owns 102.3 WGOW-FM, which

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) ...

s some shows shared with 1150 WGOW, but has its own schedule most of the day. The

radio studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for recording and mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single sin ...

s and offices are on Pineville Drive in Chattanooga. By day, WGOW transmits with 5,000

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 ...

s non-directional, but at night, to avoid interfering with other stations on

1150 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1150 kHz: 1150 AM is a Regional broadcast frequency, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. In Arg ...

, WGOW reduces power to 1,000 watts and 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 Daugherty Lane in Chattanooga's Moccasin Bend neighborhood, near the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

Programming

Weekdays begin with a local news and information show, "The Morning Press," hosted by Jim Reynolds, Kevin West and Brian Joyce. The rest of the schedule is made up of

nationally syndicated Broadcast syndication is the practice of content owners leasing the right to broadcast their content to other television stations or radio stations, without having an official broadcast network to air it on. It is common in the United States whe ...

conservative talk Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and other countries devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio. The definition of conservative talk is generally broad enough ...

programs, mostly from co-owned

Westwood One Westwood One, Inc. is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates talk, music, and sports programming. The company takes its name from an earlier network also named Westwood One, a company founded in 1976. The co ...

Chris Plante Christopher Plante (born 1959) is an American talk radio host and journalist currently hosting a syndicated radio program heard on Westwood One and a nightly TV talk show on Newsmax TV. Early life Plante was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Ju ...

Dan Bongino Daniel John Bongino (born December4, 1974) is an American government official, Conservatism in the United States, conservative political commentator, radio host, and former law enforcement officer who has served as the 20th Deputy Director of ...

, Michael Knowles,

Ben Shapiro Benjamin Aaron Shapiro (born January 15, 1984) is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative political commentator, media host, and attorney. He writes columns for Creators Syndicate, ''Newsweek'', and ''Ami Magazine'', an ...

Mark Levin Mark Reed Levin (; born September 21, 1957) is an American broadcast news analyst, columnist, lawyer, political commentator, radio personality, and writer. He is the host of syndicated radio show '' The Mark Levin Show'', as well as '' Life, ...

John Batchelor John Calvin Batchelor (born April 29, 1948) is an American author and the host of ''Eye on the World'' on the CBS Audio Network. His flagship station is WOR in New York City. The show is a hard-news-analysis radio program on current events, wo ...

. Heard overnight and early mornings are ''

Red Eye Radio ''Red Eye Radio'' is a talk radio program currently hosted by Eric Harley and Gary McNamara. The program is syndicated nationwide by Westwood One, and originates from WBAP in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The show traces its history throug ...

'' 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 ...

''. Weekends feature shows on money, health and technology. Weekend programs include

Kim Komando Kimberly Ann Komando (born July 1, 1967) is an American radio personality and the host of two daily radio shows and one weekend radio show about consumer technology. On her weekly call-in show, she provides advice about technology gadgets, websi ...

Jim Bohannon James Everett Bohannon (January 7, 1944 – November 12, 2022) was an American broadcaster who worked in television and radio and hosted the nationally syndicated late night radio talk show ''The Jim Bohannon Show'' originally broadcast on the ...

, Free Talk Live and Tom Sullivan. WGOW is 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 Tennessee Titans Radio Network. Most hours begin with world and national news from ABC Radio News.

History

WAPO

The station 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 ...

in 1936 as WAPO at 1420

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 ...

s.Information
from

Broadcasting Yearbook ''Broadcasting & Cable'' (''B&C'', or ''Broadcasting+Cable'') was a telecommunications industry monthly trade magazine and, later, news website published by Future US. Founded in 1931 as ''Broadcasting'', subsequent mergers, acquisitions and in ...

1937 page 106 It was Chattanooga's second station, after WDOD

1280 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1280 kHz: 1280 AM is a regional North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Oce ...

(now

dark Darkness is the condition resulting from a lack of illumination, or an absence of visible light. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance because the hue-sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are ...

). WAPO was owned by W. A. Patterson and had its studios on Foust Street at Rossville Boulevard. It was powered at only 1,000 watts and was a

daytimer 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 ...

, required to go off the air at sunset. By the early 1940s the frequency was changed to 1150, giving WAPO full time authorization.

WGOW

It was purchased by

Ted Turner Robert Edward Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and Philanthropy, philanthropist. He founded the CNN, Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour United States cable news, ...

in 1968. (Turner went on to found CNN, the

Cable News Network Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable new ...

). The station changed its

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 WGOW and adopted a

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 ...

format on January 1, 1969. By the early 1980s, the station had evolved into more of a full service

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 ...

format. It added more talk shows during the 1980s, and in the 1988, WGOW officially switched to the current talk radio format. In 2005, the station made waves by moving popular midday syndicated host

Rush Limbaugh Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative political commentator who was the host of ''The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nati ...

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 ...

102.3 WGOW-FM, resulting in a slight increase in ratings for the FM station, but a precipitous ratings drop for the AM. Limbaugh subsequently returned to the AM lineup in 2006.

References

External links

NewsRadio 1150 WGOW official website

FCC History Cards for WGOW
{{coord, 35, 04, 05, N, 85, 20, 04, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title GOW GOW News and talk radio stations in the United States Cumulus Media radio stations Radio stations established in 1936 1936 establishments in Tennessee