WOAI (AM)

WOAI
City San Antonio, Texas
Broadcast area San Antonio, Texas and South Texas
Branding Newsradio 1200 WOAI
Slogan San Antonio's News, Traffic and Weather Station
Frequency 1200 (kHz) (also on HD Radio)
First air date September 25, 1922
Format News/Traffic/Weather/Information
Power 50,000 watts
Class A
Facility ID 11952
Transmitter coordinates 29°30′7.6″N 98°7′43.7″W / 29.502111°N 98.128806°W / 29.502111; -98.128806
Callsign meaning World Of Agriculture Information[1]
Affiliations Fox News Radio
Spurs Radio Network
Texas Longhorns Football
The Weather Channel
Owner iHeartMedia, Inc.
(CC Licenses, LLC)
Sister stations KXXM, KAJA, KQXT, KRPT, KZEP, KTKR
Webcast Listen Live
Website http://woai.com

WOAI (1200 AM) is a San Antonio, Texas, news/talk formatted radio station operating with 50,000 watts non-directional day and night from a transmitter site near Marion, Texas. It is owned and operated by San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications, known as iHeartMedia, Inc. since September 2014, which acquired the station in 1975. WOAI is the flagship station for iHeartMedia. Its studios are located on Interstate 10 in Northwest San Antonio near Wonderland of the Americas Mall.

WOAI's local news operation features market veteran Jim Forsyth, Charity McCurdy, Cari Laque and Michael Board. Market legend Bob Guthrie, who was a WOAI news anchor for 52 years, retired in 2009.

WOAI's local programming includes San Antonio's First News with Charlie Parker and the Joe Pags Show.

WOAI is also the flagship station for the San Antonio Spurs radio network.

WOAI is known as the "50,000 Watt Blowtorch" of South Texas,[2] because of its Class A, clear channel U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) classification. Like the handful of other clear-channel AM stations (not to be confused with WOAI's parent company Clear Channel Communications), WOAI can be heard all over North and Central America after sunset. In the daytime WOAI covers most of central and south Texas.

History

WOAI signed on the air in 1922 on 1190 kilocycles in San Antonio with only 500 watts. Over the next several years WOAI was issued permits by the FRC and, later, the FCC to move the transmitter site and increase its power from 500 to 1,000 watts; then to 2,000 watts, and then 5,000; and finally to 50,000 watts in 1930. In the 1930s WOAI's programming evolved from musical performances to news and agricultural information breaks in between soap operas.

For historic documentation and photos, see http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/WOAI_San_Antonio_Texas

WOAI Radio and Television are among the few stations west of the Mississippi River whose call sign begins with "W." This designation was "grandfathered" when the federal government issued regulations requiring radio stations west of the Mississippi River to start with "K," and stations east of the Mississippi to begin with "W." WOAI Radio and Television are currently the westernmost stations to have "W" callsigns.

In 1941, WOAI was moved to clear channel 1200 kHz. This meant that WOAI was the only high power non-directional station that could be licensed on its frequency (1200 kHz) in the United States. In fact, from the 1950s through the 1980s, it was the only station licensed to 1200 kHz in the United States. This was part of an early federal emergency plan similar to today's Emergency Alert System.

Over the years WOAI's news operation developed into a well-respected institution with listeners and broadcasters.

In 1949, WOAI-TV came on the air on San Antonio's TV channel 4. Co-owned WOAI radio began a shift back to music programming as the soap operas transitioned to television.

In 1956, a Boeing B-29 collided with the tower, destroying it. The aircraft made a crash landing, which killed one.[3]

In 1975, San Antonio businessmen L. Lowry Mays and BJ "Red" McCombs founded Clear Channel Communications by acquiring the WOAI radio from AVCO Broadcasting after already acquiring easy listening KEEZ 97.3 FM (now KAJA) in 1972. The TV station was sold to United Stations which later changed the call sign to KMOL-TV.

In the late 1970s, 1200 WOAI phased out music programming. In 1979, KEEZ became WOAI-FM (not the original WOAI-FM) until the birth of Country Music station KAJA "KJ*97" in 1981.

Through the 1980s, WOAI relied more on its newsroom and focused on local and national news, local talk shows and agricultural reports. WOAI also began including sports telecasts especially after acquiring the radio contract for all San Antonio Spurs NBA games.

In 1998, San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications acquired the parent company of Premiere Radio Networks, syndicator of national talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Jim Rome Show and Coast to Coast AM. Rush and Dr. Laura had already been airing in San Antonio on market competitor, KTSA. WOAI news anchor Bob Guthrie celebrated 50 years on the radio station in 2006.

WOAI's daily national talk show programming is now effectively the Clear Channel slate of hosts: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Coast to Coast AM. Joe Pagliarulo is the host of The Joe Pags Show, which runs weekdays during afternoon drive beginning at 5pm (CT).

In 2001, Clear Channel Communications acquired KMOL-TV San Antonio from Chris-Craft Industries. In December 2002, Clear Channel was granted a permit from the FCC to change the TV station's legal call sign back WOAI-TV. The TV station has since been sold twice—to Newport Television and then to current owner Sinclair Broadcast Group.

In May 2012, WOAI added an FM simulcast on 105.7 FM, K289BN. On September 19, 2012 however, the 105.7 signal broke away from the simulcast to rebroadcast KRPT-FM.

Programming

Weekend programming includes encore editions of weekday talk shows, brokered lifestyle programming, infomercials, and other local and syndicated programming including the Joe Pags-hosted The Weekend.[4]

Sports

Personnel

News

Anchors
News Reporters
Sports Team

Management

Former staff

References

  1. ↑ http://nelson.oldradio.com/origins.call-list.html
  2. ↑ http://www.woai.com/pages/woaihistory.html
  3. ↑ http://ethw.org/WOAI_San_Antonio_Texas
  4. ↑ Weekend Schedule. Radio.woai.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
  5. ↑ "Births". Billboard. April 17, 1948. p. 44. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
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