WJCW
WJCW (910 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station, licensed to Johnson City and serving the Tri-Cities, Tennessee radio market (Johnson City-Bristol-Kingsport). It is owned by Cumulus Broadcasting and airs a talk radio format.
 | |
| City | Johnson City, Tennessee |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Tri-Cities, Tennessee |
| Branding | WJCW AM 910 |
| Slogan | Tri-Cities Talk Radio |
| Frequency | 910 kHz |
| First air date | December 13, 1938 (as WJHL) |
| Format | Talk |
| Power | 5,000 watts day 1,000 watts night |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 67672 |
| Call sign meaning | James C. Wilson, former owner |
| Former call signs | WJHL (1938-1960) |
| Affiliations | Westwood One Network Premiere Networks Westwood One News |
| Owner | Cumulus Broadcasting (Radio License Holding CBC, LLC) |
| Sister stations | WGOC, WKOS-FM, WQUT, WXSM |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | wjcw.com |
WJCW's transmitter, offices and studios are on Free Hill Road in Gray, Tennessee.[1] The complex also houses the studios for Cumulus' other Tri-Cities radio stations. WJCW broadcasts with a 5,000 watt non-directional signal in the daytime. But at night, to protect other stations on AM 910, the station reduces power to 1,000 watts and uses a directional antenna. The station is East Tennessee's AM primary entry point station for the Emergency Alert System, with WJXB-FM in Knoxville performing the PEP function on FM in east Tennessee.
History
On December 13, 1938, the station first signed on as WJHL, owned by John H. Lancaster, Sr.[2] It was the second radio station in the Tri-Cities and the first in Johnson City. It began broadcasting at only 250 watts. By the 1940s, it got a power boost to its current 5,000 watts by day, 1,000 watts at night, and became an affiliate of the NBC Blue Network, later ABC. By 1950, WJHL joined CBS, an affiliation that lasted five decades. Under Lancaster's son Hanes and grandson Hanes Jr., WJHL added 100.7 WJHL-FM in 1948 (now 101.5 WQUT) and in 1953 added WJHL-TV Channel 11. Because the AM station carried CBS programming, WJHL-TV became a CBS-TV affiliate.
In 1960, the stations were sold to Tri-Cities Broadcasting,[3] owned by James C. Wilson (son of the founder of the area's first radio station, WOPI)[4] Channel 11 kept the WJHL-TV call letters, while AM 910 was renamed WJCW after Wilson's initials and carried a country music format.
In the 1980s, listeners began shifting to FM radio for music, so in 1990, WJCW became the Tri-Cities' first news/talk station. In 2000, the station was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, a forerunner of Cumulus.[5]
Programming
On weekdays, WJCW airs a local morning show called Thinking Out Loud with hosts Tim Cable and Carl Swann. The rest of the weekday schedule is made up of nationally syndicated talk shows, including Rush Limbaugh, Chris Plante, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, John Batchelor, Jim Bohannon, Red Eye Radio and America in The Morning. Weekend programming includes shows on money, health, cars and other topics, some of which are paid brokered programming. Most hours begin with world and national news from Westwood One News.
References
External links
- Query the FCC's AM station database for WJCW
- Radio-Locator Information on WJCW
- Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WJCW