WBAL (AM)

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WBAL
WBAL RGB.png
City of license Baltimore, Maryland
Broadcast area Baltimore, Maryland
Branding 1090 AM WBAL
Slogan Maryland's News, Talk, Sports Station/The Only Station that Matters
Frequency 1090 (kHz)
Repeaters WIYY-HD4 (97.9 MHz)
First air date 1925
Format News/Talk/Sports
ERP 50,000 watts
Class A
Facility ID 65679
Transmitter coordinates 39°22′33.″N 76°46′21″W / 39.37583°N 76.7725°W / 39.37583; -76.7725Coordinates: 39°22′33.″N 76°46′21″W / 39.37583°N 76.7725°W / 39.37583; -76.7725
Callsign meaning W BALtimore
Affiliations CBS Radio Network
Baltimore Orioles
Baltimore Ravens
Yahoo! Sports Radio
Owner Hearst Corporation
Sister stations WBAL-TV, WIYY
Webcast Listen Live
Website www.wbal.com

WBAL (1090 kHz AM) is a news-talk radio station located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. WBAL broadcasts on a clear channel frequency with 50 kilowatts (or 50,000 watts) of power. Owned by the Hearst Corporation, WBAL's tri-mast transmitters are located in Randallstown, Maryland. The station shares its studios and offices with sister stations WBAL-TV (channel 11) and WIYY (97.9 FM, formerly WBAL-FM) on Television Hill in Baltimore's Woodberry neighborhood.

WBAL has the highest signal strength of any radio station in Maryland and its directional nighttime signal reaches as far as Nova Scotia and Bermuda. WBAL employs the largest number of news staff of any radio station in the state. WBAL and WIYY are the only two radio stations still owned by Hearst.

Contents

[edit] History

The WBAL Building, on Television Hill in Baltimore, has housed WBAL Radio since 1962.

WBAL began broadcasting after being dedicated on November 2, 1925, as a subsidiary of the Consolidated Gas Electric Light and Power Company, a predecessor of Constellation Energy.[1] WBAL's initial broadcasting studio was located at the utility's offices on Lexington Street, and it operated as part of the Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Company.[1] On January 12, 1935, with radio becoming more commercialized, there was little justification for public service company ownership of a radio station, and WBAL was sold to the Hearst-controlled American Radio News Corporation.[1]

In the 1930s, WBAL became the flagship station for the international broadcast of radio evangelist G. E. Lowman, which originated in Baltimore until 1959.[2] During the 1960s, WBAL had a full service free-flowing Middle Of The Road music format heavily emphasising personality. The station played a mix of soft rock and roll and non rock songs/standards.

By the early 1970s, the station had a full-service adult contemporary music format with the exception of weekday evenings, where the station employed talk programming.[3] Among its personalities during that period were program host Jay Grayson, Harley Brinsfield (who had a long-running Saturday night jazz music program, The Harley Show), and White House-accredited newsman Galen Fromme. In the early 1980s, WBAL began running talk shows overnights as well as evenings and continued to play some music during the day. Music gradually decreased and in the fall of 1985, WBAL had transitioned to its current news-talk format, winning 19 national Edward R. Murrow Awards since then – the most of any local U.S. radio station.[3] Since the mid-1990s, the station has become increasingly conservative, both in terms of its on-air personalities and its editorial disposition.

In 2010, WBAL switched its morning (5-9 AM) and afternoon (3-6 PM) drive-time shows to an all-news format, entitled Maryland's Morning News and Afternoon News Journal respectively. The all-news blocks include national newscasts from CBS at the top of each hour.[4][5]

In addition to its analog 1090 kHz signal, WBAL is repeated on WIYY-HD4, a digital subchannel of WIYY's HD Radio signal.

[edit] Personalities

WBAL reporter Robert Lang at a Governor O'Malley press conference in 2009

[edit] Notable Personalities

  • Ron Smith - passed away, at the age of 70, on the evening of December 19, 2011 after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer.[6][7]

[edit] Sports

WBAL is the co-flagship station (with WIYY) of Baltimore Ravens football and the flagship station for Baltimore Orioles baseball[8] and Navy football.

WBAL is also an affiliate of Sporting News Radio which it broadcasts late nights and weekends.

Since the Orioles began their inaugural season in 1954, WBAL has been their flagship station for most of their existence, though not continuously; for example, it carried Orioles games every season from 1987 to 2006 (after which the team's games were broadcast on crosstown rival WJZ-FM "105.7 The Fan"), and resumed that status in 2011. Ravens games have been broadcast on WBAL and WIYY since the 2006 season. In the event that the Orioles and Ravens are playing on the same day, WBAL will broadcast the Orioles game, while WIYY gets the Ravens game.

Other teams whose games have been broadcast on WBAL include the Baltimore Colts, the University of Maryland Terrapins and the Towson Tigers.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c King, Thomson (1950). Consolidated of Baltimore 1816-1950: A History of Consolidated Gas Electric Light and Power Company of Baltimore. Baltimore: Consolidated Gas Electric Light and Power Co.. pp. 246, 274. 
  2. ^ O'Connor, Thomas H. Baltimore Broadcasting from A to Z (1985), p. 23.
  3. ^ a b Zurawick, David (July 24, 2009). "WBAL radio manager is leaving". The Baltimore Sun: p. 3. 
  4. ^ "CBS Radio News Mid-Atlantic Region". CBS. 2010-05-25. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/25/broadcasts/main6517880.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody. Retrieved 2 September 2010. 
  5. ^ "WBAL Schedule". http://www.wbal.com/shows/schedule.asp. Retrieved 2 September 2010. 
  6. ^ "Ron Smith Succumbs To Cancer At 70". WBAL-TV/Hearst Television. December 20, 2011. http://www.wbaltv.com/news/30034561/detail.html. Retrieved December 20, 2011. 
  7. ^ "Ron Smith 1941-2011". WBAL/Hearst Television. December 20, 2011. http://www.wbal.com/article/83881/2/template-story/Ron-Smith-1941-2011. Retrieved December 20, 2011. 
  8. ^ "Orioles headed back to WBAL". baltimoresun.com. February 8, 2011. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/2011/02/orioles_headed_back_to_wbal.html. Retrieved February 9, 2011. 

[edit] External links

Radio stations in the Baltimore, Maryland market
By FM frequency
88.1 • 88.9 • 89.7 • 90.5 • 91.1 • 91.5 • 92.3 • 93.1 • 95.1 • 95.9 • 97.5 • 97.9 • 99.1 • 100.7 • 101.9 • 102.7 • 103.1 • 103.7 • 104.3 • 105.7 • 106.5 • 107.9
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Defunct stations
WBIS (1190 AM) • WDKW (1630 AM)
News/Talk Radio Stations in the state of Maryland
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See also: adult contemporary, classic hits, college, country, news/talk, NPR, oldies, religious, rock, sports, top 40, urban, and other radio stations in Maryland
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