WFDF

For other uses, see WFDF (disambiguation).

WFDF

City of license	Farmington Hills, Michigan
Broadcast area	[1] (Daytime) [2] (Nighttime)
Branding	Radio Disney AM 910
Frequency	910 kHz (also on HD Radio)
First air date	May 25, 1922 (in Flint, moved to
Format	Children's/Pop Music
Power	50,000 watts (day) 25,000 watts (night)
Class	B
Facility ID	13664
Transmitter coordinates	42°03′57″N 83°23′39″W
Callsign meaning	Frank D. Fallain (original owner)
Former callsigns	WEAA (1922-1925)
Owner	Disney/ABC (Radio Disney Group, LLC)
Website	http://radio.disney.go.com/ mystation/detroit/

WFDF (910 AM) is an American radio station, licensed to Farmington Hills, Michigan. It is the Radio Disney outlet for the Southeastern Michigan And Southwestern Ontario markets.

History

The station began broadcasting in 1922 as WEAA in Flint. 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 middle-of-the-road music format targeting Flint. WFDF experimented with a Top 40 rock format (using the nickname "Giant 91") for a time in the early 1970s, but the station's older listeners disliked the change and tuned out in droves, leading the station to shift its music mix back toward Adult Contemporary by 1975. In the 1980s, as popular music formats on AM were dying and shifting to FM, WFDF became an Adult Standards station and a favorite with the older demographics. WFDF's format shifted to News/Talk in 1993. By 2001, the station was owned by Cumulus Broadcasting.

Move to Detroit

In 2002, Cumulus sold the station to ABC and in August, the station began featuring programming from Radio Disney. In 2003, ABC began preparations to move WFDF to the Detroit market. It announced plans for a new tower in Monroe County, Michigan, and applied to change its city of license to Farmington Hills (a Detroit suburb), with 50,000 watts of daytime power and 25,000 watts at night.

In order for this change to take place, some channels had to be deleted that would have interfered with the station's present signal. ABC purchased the AM license of WFRO in Fremont, Ohio; which operated at AM 900, while its FM sister was spun off to a new owner. Also operating on AM 900 was WSNQ in Gaylord, Michigan. This station was silenced shortly after its FM station, WMJZ, was spun off to a new owner. With the two AM 900 frequencies now silenced, this paved the way for WFDF to substantially increase its power and move into the more profitable Detroit radio market.

The new tower still covers Flint with a city-grade signal. The license for the new facilities was granted by the Federal Communications Commission in January 2006. The city of license was changed in February 2006. The former broadcast towers in Burton, outside Flint, were taken down and dismantled in April 2006.

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

See also

• Media in Detroit

Sources

• Michiguide.com - WFDF History

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WFDF
• Radio-Locator Information on WFDF
• Query Arbitron's AM station database for WFDF
• WFDF history from The Uncommon Sense