page_title: WLW
section_title: Return to 50,000 watts
hierarchical_section_title: WLW / History / Return to 50,000 watts
caption_attribution_description: English: Promotional advertisement for radio station WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio
context_page_description: WLW – branded Newsradio 700 WLW – is a commercial news/talk radio station licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio, serving Greater Cincinnati and much of surrounding Southern Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WLW is a clear-channel station with extended nighttime range, often identifying itself as The Big One.
  WLW operates at 50,000 watts around the clock. Its daytime signal provides secondary coverage to most of Ohio and Indiana, as well as large slices of Kentucky and a sliver of Michigan. It can be heard at city-grade strength as far as Indianapolis, Indiana; Lexington, Kentucky and Columbus, Ohio, with secondary coverage as far as Louisville and the outer suburbs of Cleveland and Detroit. At night, it can be heard in much of North America with a good radio.
  WLW serves as the Cincinnati affiliate for ABC News Radio; the AM flagship station for the Cincinnati Reds Radio Network; a co-flagship station for the Cincinnati Bengals Radio Network; and the home of radio personalities Mike McConnell, Rocky Boiman and Bill Cunningham.
context_section_description: On March 1, 1939, WLW resumed operations at 50,000 watts. The station had unsuccessfully attempted to reverse the decision in the courts, and now had to shut down the huge amplifiers, except for brief, experimental night periods as W8XO. Because of the impending war, and the possible need for national broadcasting in an emergency, the W8XO experimental license for 500 kilowatts remained in effect until December 29, 1942.
  Beginning in 1939, WLW used the overnight hours to transmit READO radiofax newspapers. However, the system was unable to compete with standard newspaper delivery, and was shut down a few years later.
  In the 1930s, WLW occupied the entire 48th floor of Carew Tower. In 1942, the station moved its studios into the Crosley Square building, a converted Elks Lodge No. 5 in downtown Cincinnati. WLW's sister television station, WLWT (then branded WLW-T), was founded in the same building. In 1955, WLW and WLWT became the first radio and television station to own a weather radar.
  A major promotion of the station in the 1940s was the Boone County Jamboree. A 1942 advertisement in the trade publication Billboard noted: "WLW Boone County Jamboree acts played to 169,406 persons, July 4 to October 4. An all time record of 63 bookings in seven States. New attendance records established at 14 events."
  The August 1941 adoption of the Federal Communications Commission's "duopoly" rule restricted licensees from operating more than one radio station in a given market. At this time the Crosley Corporation owned both WLW and WSAI, so to conform with the new regulation in 1944 WSAI was sold to Marshall Field. The next year Crosley sold WLW to the Aviation Corporation of the Americas (Avco), earning a handsome return on his original investment of a quarter-century earlier. The Crosley name was so well respected that Avco retained it as the name of its broadcast division until 1968.
  From the 1950s until the 1970s, broadcasts for WLW were moved across Elm street to the COMEX building, where people could watch radio broadcasts from the sidewalk through plate glass windows.
  By 1962 there were only 13 unduplicated clear channel frequencies left in the United States, and the FCC was investigating whether to "break up" these remaining frequencies by adding secondary stations. In response the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 714, which gave support to having the frequencies remain assigned exclusively to a single station, and a number of the stations, calling themselves the "Clear Channel Broadcasting Service", applied for higher powers. This included WLW, which submitted an application to operate with 750 kilowatts. However, the FCC denied these applications and went ahead with the additional stations, located mostly in under-served western states. Despite no longer being the sole occupant of 700 kHz, WLW's signal still sometimes spanned impressive distances, and in 1985 overnight host Dale Sommers received a call from a listener in Hawaii.
  Avco began exiting broadcasting in 1975. WLW was one of the last properties to be sold in 1976. From that point until the 1990s, WLW had different owners, including Queen City Communications, Mariner Communications, Seven Hills Broadcasting and Jacor Communications, before Jacor merged with Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia).
  From the late 1970s to 1989, WLW's studios were located downtown at 3 East 4th Street, now the site of the National City Bank (now PNC) Tower in downtown Cincinnati. From 1989 to 2005, WLW was located in Mt. Adams, a trendy neighborhood overlooking downtown. The address remained 1111 St. Gregory Street. WLW was originally on the fourth floor, where it shared studios with sister station WEBN. In 1992, as Jacor started to consolidate stations, the fifth floor was taken over by the human resources and traffic departments, along with new studios for 550 WLWA, formerly WKRC. In 1995, Jacor moved all of its stations into the Mt. Adams facility leasing the entire building.
  Along with other Clear Channel talk stations, WLW switched from ABC News Radio t
caption: Promotional advertisement (1939)[48]
exif: {}