WLQR (AM)
Broadcast area | Toledo Metropolitan Area |
---|---|
Frequency | 1470 kHz |
Branding | 1470 The Ticket |
Programming | |
Format | Sports |
Affiliations | ESPN Radio |
Ownership | |
Owner |
|
WKKO, WRQN, WLQR-FM, WTOD, WTWR, WWWM, WXKR | |
History | |
First air date | 1954 |
Former call signs | WWWM, WOHO |
Call sign meaning | none; formerly used on the 101.5 frequency |
Technical information | |
Class | B |
Power | 1,000 Watts |
Transmitter coordinates | 41°37′54″N 83°28′38″W / 41.63167°N 83.47722°W |
Links | |
Website | [1] |
This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2007) |
WLQR AM 1470 is a sports/talk radio station based in Toledo, Ohio. WLQR is the Toledo affiliate for ESPN Radio and is owned by Cumulus Media. The station calls itself "Sports Radio 1470-The Ticket."
AM 1470 is the Toledo affiliate for the Detroit Lions, Detroit Pistons, Detroit Red Wings, and the Detroit Tigers, as well as Ohio State Buckeyes football and basketball. AM 1470 also covers selected high school football games. The station had also been the flagship station of Toledo Mud Hens baseball from 2003 to 2007, but the team announced in October 2007 that they would move to Clear Channel-owned WCWA. Norm Wamer, the longtime Program Director of the station confirmed that on Monday June 22, 2009 The Ticket will gain a second signal on the FM dial on 106.5fm.
History
For many years, AM 1470 was home to WOHO, a leading Top 40 music station in Toledo through the 1960s and 1970s and into the early 1980s. During the Top 40 music years, the Disk Jockeys were known as the "WOHO Good Guys". Music-era DJs included: Program Director Don Armstrong, Bill Manders, Larry Love, Ben Gall, Russ Simpson, Buddy Carr, Tommy Vance, Ken R. Deutch, Sir Bernard J. Quayle, Mike Cook, Mike Morin, Corey Deitz, News Director Craig Edwards, and news staffers, Cheryl Deutsch, Scott Feldman, Lou Hebert, Irwin Young, Hank Neyer and Ken Roberts. For several years, it was known as "1470 The Chicken" in reference to its mascot, a giant whole broiled chicken dressed in seasonal clothing. And there was also the inimitable "MOJO Man". One of the "Good Guys" Larry Love, (Larry Weseman) was 16 and still in high school when he began working at WOHO in the late 1960s making him Toledo's youngest deejay. Russ Simpson, a Canadian, became the host of "Royale Windfall" on CHAN-TV in Vancouver and died in 2004. Buddy Carr (who later became the original owner of WRED) is the only former "Good Guy" still on the air in Toledo.
Prior to adopting the current sports-talk format and WLQR calls in November 1995, AM 1470 was known as WWWM-AM, with an urban contemporary music format.
Until 1995, WLQR was also the longtime call sign of an Easy Listening music station on 101.5 FM in Toledo, which is today WRVF (101.5 "The River").
WLQR Today
WLQR broadcasts on 1470 kHz with a power output of 1000 watts, with a different signal pattern day and night. The transmitter and four towers are located on Pickle Road, east of Toledo, in Oregon, Ohio. The station originally went on the air in 1954 as WOHO. WOHO/AM1470 was/is owned by the Lew Dickey family, who now control the Cumulus Broadcasting Company, so for all practical purposes, AM1470 is their flagship/first station. The studios at the transmitter site are no longer in use, as the WLQR studios have been moved to the Cumulus Toledo-Cluster facility in South Toledo. The Pickle Road studios were also later shared with sister-station WXEZ-105.5 FM, later "Z-105" in the 70's and 80's, and now WWWM-FM.
"WLQR-FM" returns to the air: Due to "The Zone's" small listener base (on 106.5 MHz FM) which was in decline, on June 22, 2009 the modern Rock format was dropped on 106.5 FM in favor of a full time simulcast of Sports talk 1470 WLQR "The Ticket". The new calls on FM 106.5 are WLQR-FM Toledo/Delta, which also broadcasts in HD Radio. As of July 2009, "The Zone" programming is now available only online or as an HD-2 channel broadcast over 94.5 FM, WXKR-HD2.