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WHO (AM)

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Coordinates: 41°39′10″N 93°21′1″W / 41.65278°N 93.35028°W / 41.65278; -93.35028
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WHO
Broadcast areaDes Moines metropolitan area
Frequency1040 kHz
BrandingNewsRadio 1040 WHO
Programming
FormatNews/talk
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
KCYZ, KDRB, KKDM, KXNO-FM, KXNO, KASI
History
First air date
April 10, 1924; 100 years ago (1924-04-10)
Former frequencies
  • 570 kHz (1924–1927)[1]
  • 560 kHz (1927–1928)
  • 1000 kHz (1928–1941)
[2]
Technical information[3]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID51331
ClassA
Power50,000 watts
Transmitter coordinates
41°39′10″N 93°21′1″W / 41.65278°N 93.35028°W / 41.65278; -93.35028 (main antenna) 41°39′10″N 93°21′7″W / 41.65278°N 93.35194°W / 41.65278; -93.35194 (auxiliary antenna)
Repeater(s)100.3 KDRB-HD2 (Des Moines)
Links
Public license information
WebcastWHO Listen Live
Websitewhoradio.iheart.com

WHO (1040 kHz "Newsradio 1040") is a commercial AM radio station in Des Moines, Iowa, United States. The station is owned by iHeartMedia and carries a news/talk radio format, with studios on Grand Avenue in Des Moines.

WHO broadcasts with 50,000 watts, the maximum power permitted for AM stations in the United States. It uses a non-directional antenna from a transmitter site on 148th Street South in Mitchellville, Iowa.[4] WHO programming is also heard on the second HD Radio digital subchannel of co-owned KDRB (100.3 FM), and the station is Iowa's primary entry point station for the Emergency Alert System.

WHO dates back to the early days of broadcasting and is a Class A clear-channel station. The station is one of only two 50,000-watt AM radio stations in Iowa. The other is KXEL in Waterloo. However, WHO was originally a Class I-A, while KXEL was given Class I-B status, requiring a directional antenna at night, to avoid interfering with the other Class I-B station on 1540, ZNS-1 in Nassau, Bahamas. WHO high power and Iowa's excellent soil conductivity gives it at least secondary daytime coverage of most of Iowa, as well as parts of Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. With a good radio, it can be heard at night across much of North America, but is strongest in the Central United States.

Programming

Weekdays on WHO begin with "Max & Amy," a news and information show. Two other local hosts are heard on weekdays, Jeff Angelo in late mornings and Simon Conway in afternoon drive time. The rest of the schedule is made up of nationally syndicated shows, mostly from the co-owned Premiere Networks: "Clay Travis & Buck Sexton," Sean Hannity, "Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb," "Coast to Coast AM with George Noory" and "America in the Morning" with John Trout.

Saturday mornings feature a local show, "Saturday Morning Live" with Emery Songer and syndicated weekend shows include Kim Komando, Bill Cunningham and Michael Brown and Dave Ramsey . Shows that talk about investing, health, technology, pets and religion are also heard, some of which are paid brokered programming.

Sports

WHO has been the longtime flagship station of University of Iowa sports. Jim Zabel, who joined WHO in 1944,[5] was the play-by-play voice for Hawkeyes football and basketball games from 1949 to 1996. That is when the University of Iowa licensed exclusive rights to do radio play-by-play to Learfield Sports, which picked Gary Dolphin as the play-by-play announcer for Hawkeyes men's and women's basketball.

State Fair

WHO broadcasts its local shows from the Iowa State Fair for the duration of that event.

History

Early years

WHO began broadcasting on April 10, 1924.[6] The station was originally owned by Bankers Life, which is now the Principal Financial Group. Although since January 1923 most radio stations in Iowa have been assigned call signs starting with "K", WHO is unusual in starting with "W", normally reserved for stations located east of the Mississippi River.[7] WHO dates back to the early years of radio, when call signs were often only three letters long. Because its call letters were issued outside of the four-letter sequence normally employed by the time,[1] there has been speculation that they might have been chosen to spell out "We Help Others"[8] or the question "Who?". For many years, WHO has used an owl as its mascot, a play on its call letters, pronounced like an owl's call.

Advertisement for consolidated WOC-WHO (1933)[9]

The original studios were on the top floor of the Liberty Building in downtown Des Moines.[10] After the FRC's General Order 40 reallocated frequencies in 1928, WHO was assigned to 1000 kHz on a time-sharing basis with WOC in Davenport.

In late 1929, the Central Broadcasting Company was formed with B. J. Palmer as chairman. This company purchased both WOC and WHO, which were then synchronized to simultaneously broadcast identical programs on their shared frequency, each using a 5 kilowatt transmitter. In April 1932, a 50 kilowatt transmitter, located near Mitchellville, Iowa and close to Des Moines, went into service, and the separate transmitters were replaced by this single transmitter, with the two stations now combined under a dual identity as WOC-WHO.[11] (WOC was restored as a station separate from WHO in November 1934, when the Palmer School purchased station KICK in Carter Lake, Iowa, which was moved to Davenport, and its call sign changed to WOC.)

Through most of its early years, WHO was a network affiliate of the NBC Red Network, broadcasting comedies, dramas, game shows, soap operas, sports and big bands. WHO moved from 1000 AM to the current 1040 on March 29, 1941, as a result of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement.

Ronald Reagan working for WHO in the mid-1930s

Ronald Reagan, WHO sportscaster

Future United States President Ronald Reagan worked as a sportscaster with WHO from 1932 to 1937. Among his duties were re-creations of Chicago Cubs baseball games. Reagan received details over a teleprinter for each play and would act as if he were in the stadium, reporting on the game while seeing it from the press box. Many radio stations used this re-creation system until sports networks became more common.

WHO-FM and WHO-TV

In 1948, WHO-FM (100.3) signed on the air. Originally WHO-FM simulcast most of the programming heard on 1040 AM. In 1967, WHO-FM switched to classical music and beautiful music. The FM station has changed formats and call letters several times since then and now broadcasts as KDRB, "100.3 The Bus". In 1954, WHO-TV began broadcasting on channel 13. Because WHO radio was a long-time affiliate of NBC, the TV station also affiliated with NBC.

WHO was continuously owned by the Palmer family for more than 70 years, until Jacor Broadcasting purchased the station in 1997. Jacor merged with Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) a year later. WHO and the other Clear Channel radio stations in Des Moines (KDRB, KKDM, KLYF, and KXNO) continued to share a building with WHO-TV until moving into a new facility in 2005.

Alumni

Herb Plambeck was a farm reporter for many years from 1936 to 1976.[12] Talk-show host Steve Deace started his broadcast career at WHO.[13]

Until his death in 2013, Jim Zabel remained with WHO as co-host (with Jon Miller of HawkeyeNation) of the Sound Off sports talk show that aired on Saturdays during Hawkeyes seasons, and as co-host of Two Guys Named Jim on Sunday nights with former Iowa State University football coach Jim Walden.

References

  1. ^ a b "New Stations", Radio Service Bulletin, May 1, 1924, page 3.
  2. ^ "Revised list of broadcasting stations, by frequencies, effective 3 a. m., November 11, 1928, eastern standard time", Second Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission for the Year Ended June 30, 1928, Together With Supplemental Report for the Period From July 1, 1928, to September 30, 1928, page 204.
  3. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WHO". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  4. ^ "WHO-AM 1040 kHz - Des Moines, IA". radio-locator.com.
  5. ^ "Newsradio 1040 WHO". www.whoradio.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011.
  6. ^ "Iowa Radio: Des Moines (WHO entry), Broadcasting Yearbook (1977 edition), page C-76.
  7. ^ "'K' Calls Are Western", The Wireless Age, April 1923, page 25.
  8. ^ "Telephone Broadcasting Stations for the United States" (WHO entry), Citizens Radio Callbook, Spring 1925, page 16.
  9. ^ "WOC-WHO" (advertisement), Broadcasting, April 1, 1933, page 21.
  10. ^ "Liberty Building, Des Moines". SkyscraperPage.com. Retrieved May 2, 2022.
  11. ^ Education's Own Stations (Palmer School of Chiropractic section) by S. E. Frost, Jr., 1937, page 316.
  12. ^ "Herbert Plambeck (1908-2001) Papers, 1920-2001" (PDF). Iowa State University Special Collections Department. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  13. ^ Calmes, Jackie (November 3, 2015). "Steve Deace and the Power of Conservative Media". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved November 5, 2018.
  • Stein, Jeff, Making Waves: The People and Places of Iowa Broadcasting (ISBN 0-9718323-1-5). Cedar Rapids, Iowa: WDG Communications, 2004.
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