WPIT (730 AM) is a commercial

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 radi ...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

. It carries a Christian talk and teaching

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 was compelle ...

. At night, Christian contemporary music is heard. WPIT is licensed to the Salem Communications Holding Corporation, which is owned by the

Salem Media Group Salem Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: SALM; formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an American Radio broadcasting, radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher formerly based in Camarillo, California (moved mo ...

. The

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, ...

s are at Parkway Center in Pittsburgh. By day, WPIT is powered at 5,000

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 Wa ...

s; because

730 AM 730 AM is a Mexican and Canadian clear-channel frequency. XEX Mexico City and CKAC Montreal are the Class A stations on 730 kHz. The following radio stations Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio signal, audio (sound), sometimes ...

is a Canadian and Mexican clear channel frequency WPIT must reduce power to only 24 watts at night, to avoid interference. The

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 ...

is off Mount Troy Road in Pittsburgh. The station's antenna system uses a single tower that results in an omnidirectional signal pattern. According to the Antenna Structure Registration database, the tower is tall. Programming is also heard on 250 watt

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tra ...

W243CW at 96.5 MHz.

Programming

WPIT carries both local and national religious leaders, including Adrian Rogers,

David Jeremiah David Jeremiah is an American evangelical Christian author, founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch in El Cajon, California, a suburb of San ...

, Alistair Begg and Chuck Swindoll. It uses

brokered programming Brokered programming (also known as time-buy and blocktime) is a form of broadcast content in which the show's producer pays a radio or television station for air time, rather than exchanging programming for pay or the opportunity to play spot comm ...

where hosts pay for time on the station and may use their shows to seek donations to their ministries. World and national news is supplied by SRN News. The station is the Pittsburgh affiliate for

Penn State Nittany Lions The Penn State Nittany Lions are the athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University, except for the women's basketball team, known as the Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot is the Nittany Lion. The interc ...

football.PSU schedule on WPIT
/ref> From 6:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., WPIT switches to a Christian contemporary music format. WPIT is one of two

Christian radio Christian radio is a Christian media radio format that focus on programming with a Christian message. Many such broadcasters play contemporary Christian music, though many programs include sermons, radio dramas, as well as news and talk prog ...

stations owned by Salem in Pittsburgh.

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 ...

101.5 WORD-FM carries Christian talk and teaching programs around the clock.

History

WPIT

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature, placing one's name on a document * Signature (disambiguation) * Manual communication, signing as a form of communication using the hands in place of the voice * Digital signature A dig ...

the air in 1947. It has been a

station for most of its history and at one time was a

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, simult ...

of its FM

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 ...

, 101.5 WORD-FM. WPIT's studios were once located on Smithfield Street in downtown Pittsburgh. A neon sign reading "WPIT DIAL 730" hung outside their former location for years after they had moved out, well into the early 1980s. The station moved to Gateway Towers in downtown Pittsburgh around 1980, next door to the KDKA and KDKA-TV home of One Gateway Center. WPIT has had only three managers in its long history. Michael Komichak, who also built the station back in 1947 and did much of its engineering work, Chuck Gratner, who assumed control of WPIT-AM and FM after both were sold to Salem in 1993, and then-sales manager Tom Lemmon, who became General Manager following Gratner's retirement in 2014. After Salem's takeover, old policies against atheist guests were lifted and

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An at ...

has even appeared on air. Once the sale to Salem was complete, the operations of WPIT and WORD-FM moved up to Seven Parkway Center in Greentree, just outside the Pittsburgh city limits. WPIT had some secular conservative talk programming in its lineup ( Dr. Laura, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt), but religious programming continues to fill most of the station's hours. For many years, WPIT has also aired foreign-language and ethnic programming on weekends. The station is known as "73 WPIT"

References

External links

FCC History Cards for WPIT
* {{Salem Communications

PIT Pit or PIT may refer to: Structure * Ball pit, a recreation structure * Casino pit, the part of a casino which holds gaming tables * Trapping pit, pits used for hunting * Pit (motor racing), an area of a racetrack where pit stops are conducted * ...

Radio stations established in 1947 1947 establishments in Pennsylvania Salem Media Group properties