WAKR
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| Broadcast area | Akron, Ohio |
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| Branding | 1590 WAKR |
| Slogan | Akron's News Authority |
| First air date | October 16, 1940 |
| Frequency | 1590 (kHz) |
| Format | Adult Standards |
| ERP | 5,000 watts |
| Class | B |
| Callsign meaning | AKRon |
| Affiliations | ABC Radio Paul Harvey |
| Owner | Rubber City Radio Group |
| Website | www.wakr.net |
WAKR is an AM radio station in Akron, Ohio, USA operating on 1590 kHz. It is owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WONE-FM and WQMX and Lansing's WJXQ, WQTX, WJZL and WVIC. The station features local news and talk in the morning, with a pop standards format throughout the rest of the day. Until recently, the station had carried music from Westwood One's Adult Standards programming package.
WAKR has also been for many years the Akron affiliate for broadcasts of the Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Cavaliers. Their news department (dubbed the "Rubber City Radio Newsroom" also feed drive-time news and traffic updates to sister stations WONE and WQMX.
Despite carrying the standards format, WAKR still identifies itself as "Akron's News Authority."
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[edit] History
The station began broadcasting on October 16, 1940, founded by S. Bernard Berk and licensed to his family owned business Summit Radio Corp. It became the Blue Network and then the ABC radio affiliate for Akron, broadcasting with 5,000 watts.
While crosstown rival WADC (now WARF) had the advantage of being a CBS affiliate with its popular network programs, WAKR built its reputation primarily through local programming, supplemented with an active news department. The local emphasis worked, and during WAKR's peak, in 1946 and 1947, Hooper ratings showed the station with as much as 60 percent of the Akron audience.
In 1945 Alan Freed joined WAKR and became a local favorite, playing hot jazz and pop recordings. When he left the station, the non-compete clause in his contract limited its ability to find work elsewhere, and he was forced to take the graveyard shift at Cleveland's WJW radio where he eventually made history playing the music he called "Rock and Roll."
In 1946, Berk expanded ownership of Summit Radio Corp. by selling 45% to the Beacon Journal Publishing Co., publishers of the Akron Beacon Journal. The newspaper company would continue to own a piece of Summit's operations for 30 years [1].
During the 1950s and 1960s WAKR was Akron's premier radio station. It operated as a very successful Top 40 station during the late 1960s. WAKR also started Akron's first FM station, WAKR-FM, in 1948. It changed to WAEZ in the late 1960s, and became WONE-FM on January 1, 1985.
WAKR also started Akron's first television station WAKR-TV on channel 49 in 1953. The station moved to channel 23 in 1967, and changed its callsign to WAKC-TV in 1986 when it ceased being commonly owned with the radio station. The television station is now WVPX-TV.
Since taking to the air, WAKR has been the home to many personalities who would become national stars, among them film actors Lola Albright and Mark Stevens; radio names Peter Hackes, Scott Muni and Charlie Greer; and the first host of TV's Jeopardy! Art Fleming (known there as Art Fazzin).
Ownership of the Berk family broadcasting interests was organized as Group One Broadcasting around 1965 when it purchased WONE (AM) and WONE-FM (later WTUE) in Dayton. It bought KBOX and KBOX-FM in Dallas in 1967, and KLZ and KLZ-FM in Denver in 1972. Summit Radio and Group One were dissolved in June 1986, and the station passed through four different owners in the next seven years.
WAKR along with WONE-FM and the other Group One stations were sold to DKM Broadcasting in June 1986 (WAKR's license was transferred in September 1986). DKM (for Dyson, Kisner and Moran) sold all of its properties, including other stations in Dayton, Dallas, Denver, Baltimore, Springfield and Lincoln, on January 1, 1988 for $200 million to Summit Communications Group (which had no connection to Summit Radio, WAKR's previous owner).
Ownership passed to U.S. Radio headed by Ragan Henry on December 7, 1989. Finally, WAKR and WONE-FM were transferred on December 6, 1993 to Gordon-Thomas Communications, Inc., headed by Thom Mandel, which also owned WQMX. The company changed its name to Rubber City Radio Group on the same day.
WAKR's format has also evolved with the times. By the very early 90's, WAKR was a pop standards/talk hybrid with local personalities Bob Allen, Bob Friend and Christie Maxx during the daytime and national talk with Bruce Williams and Jim Bohannon at night. Not too long after the Gulf War Around 1992, WAKR went into an news-talk format with Rush Limbaugh, Larry King, and all news in the morning; later Gary Burbank and ESPN Radio programming eventually added into the schedule. with news-intensive local programming in both morning and afternoon drive.
In 1998, the station reverted back into a standards format that was mostly sattelite-based from Westwood One, with its' morning news program as the lone holdover of the previous format. One of the Westwood One Adult Standards personalities that was heard on the station, Chick Watkins, had local ties in that he was program director at WCUE and WCUE-FM from 1956 to 1970 (and also was program director for Cleveland's WGAR from 1970 to 1982). However, an all-local weekday lineup was officially unveiled on August 30, 2006.
[edit] Programming
[edit] Monday-Friday
- 5:00 a.m. - 5:30 a.m.: America in the Morning with Jim Bohannon
- 5:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.: The Ray Horner Morning Show
- 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.: Chuck Collins
- 12:00 p.m. - 12:30 p.m.: WAKR News at Noon with Paul Harvey
- 12:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.: Bob Allen
- 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.: Tim Daugherty
- 7:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.: Debbie Golden
[edit] Saturday
- 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.: Money Talks with Richard Peterson
- 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.: Ready, Set Grow with Tom Dayton
- 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.: My Beautiful Home with Andy January and Catherine DeLong
- 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.: The AGMC Good Health Hour with Dr. Tim Stover
- 12:00 p.m. - 12:25 p.m.: WAKR News at Noon with Paul Harvey
[edit] Sunday
- 5:30 a.m. - 6:00 a.m.: Spectrum
- 6:00 a.m. - 7:30 a.m.: Paid Programs
- 7:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.: Community Profiles - Coming Together Project of Akron
- 8:00 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.: Grace Baptist Church
- 8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.: Civic Forum of the Air
- 9:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.: Ask the Electrician
- 9:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.: Center Talks - Urban League of Akron
- 9:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.: Paid Program
- 10:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.: Furnace Street Mission with Rev. Bob Denton
- 10:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.: Paid Program
- 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.: First United Methodist Church
[edit] External links
| AM Radio Stations in the Akron, Ohio Market (Arbitron #74)
By Frequency: 640 | 1150 | 1350 | 1520 | 1590 |
