WHSQ
WHSQ is an AM radio station in New York City, owned by Audacy, Inc. The station is operated by Good Karma Brands under a local marketing agreement. It broadcasts a sports radio format as the co-flagship of the ESPN Radio network. WHSQ's transmitter is located on High Island in the Bronx; its 50,000-watt clear channel signal can be heard at night throughout much of the eastern United States and Canada.
The station first signed on in September 1924 as Alfred H. Grebe's WAHG, becoming WABC in 1926. It was an affiliate and owned-and-operated flagship of the CBS Radio Network for much of its existence, and held the call letters WCBS from 1946 to 2024. In 1967, the station began an all-news format, competing primarily with WINS. WCBS later became a sister to WINS after CBS's merger with Westinghouse Broadcasting; the two stations were differentiated in their style and extent of coverage. In 2017, CBS Radio merged with Entercom, ending the ownership of WCBS by CBS.
In 2022, WCBS began to combine its operations with WINS. In August 2024, Audacy announced that it would end WCBS's all-news format after 57 years, and enter into an LMA with Good Karma Brands to operate the station under a sports format; in particular, it subsumed the programming of WEPN-FM, due to the expiration of GKB's LMA for the station with Emmis Communications.
Programming
WHSQ carries a mix of local and ESPN Radio national programming, The station is the flagship of the New York Mets Radio Network, as the rights are owned by Audacy rather than Good Karma Brands, they are not part of the LMA and the station's advertising is sold by Audacy during Mets broadcasts. Likewise, the station is promoted by Audacy as Mets Radio 880, and its associated stream on the Audacy app otherwise carries Infinity Sports Network programming outside of Mets games.History
Alfred H. Grebe
The station was first licensed, as WAHG, on September 20, 1924, to Alfred H. Grebe & Company, for 500 watts on 950 kHz. It made its debut broadcast on the evening of September 22. WAHG was a pioneering station in New York, and was one of the first commercial radio stations to broadcast from remote locations including horse races and yachting events.In December 1926, WABC, a station located in Asheville, North Carolina, changed its call sign to WWNC. Grebe took advantage of this to modify his station's call sign to one that reflected a change in ownership to the Atlantic Broadcasting Company, and it was announced that on December 17 "the new super power 5 kW station WABC, formerly WAHG, took to the air... from 113 West 57th St." debuting with a "gala concert".
On March 26, 1925, a second station, WBOQ, standing for "Borough of Queens", had been licensed to A. H. Grebe & Company on 1270 kHz. Grebe's Atlantic Broadcasting Company eventually was licensed for four New York City-area stations: WABC, WBOQ, plus portable stations WGMU and WRMU. The two portable stations were deleted on July 31, 1928, after the recently formed Federal Radio Commission decided that movable stations were too difficult to regulate. On November 11, 1928, WABC and WBOQ were formally consolidated as WABC-WBOQ, and the FRC's General Order 40 moved the combined operation to a "clear channel" frequency of 860 kHz. WABC-WBOQ became a part-time network affiliate of the Columbia Broadcasting System, which wanted a full-time radio presence in New York City. CBS programming had earlier been heard on WOR also on a part time basis. WOR remained independent for a few years, then helped form the Mutual Broadcasting System.
CBS ownership
After a short time broadcasting CBS programming three days a week, WABC-WBOQ was purchased by CBS president William S. Paley, and became a full-time CBS Network owned and operated station. WABC-WBOQ increased its transmitting power from 5,000 to its present 50,000 watts, the maximum permitted by the FCC. Studios also moved into the CBS headquarters at 485 Madison Avenue, on the corner of 52nd Street.The station featured a mix of local interest programming along with dramas, comedies, news, sports, and music programs from CBS's national feed. As time went by, WABC turned more and more to the national programming provided by CBS and its affiliates, and its broadcast day was influenced by CBS's growing interest in news programming. In 1939, the broadcasting operations were moved across 52nd Street from the headquarters to the new CBS Studio Building.
New frequency and call sign
On June 15, 1940, the generally unused WBOQ call sign was eliminated from the station's dual call signs, and it became just WABC. In 1941, due to the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, the station moved to 880 kHz.On September 8, 1946, the call sign of a station in Springfield, Illinois, was changed from WCBS to WCVS. This allowed WABC in New York to change to WCBS on November 2, 1946, to identify more closely with its parent network, the Columbia Broadcasting System. It also helped avoid confusion with the rival network of the American Broadcasting Company, which began operation under that name in 1945. Control of the call sign WABC was retained by renaming a relay station from WEHG to WABC. Longtime, and unrelated, ABC radio flagship station on 770 kHz in New York was assigned the call sign WABC in 1953, after operating since its beginning in 1921 as WJZ.
Over the next 20 years, WCBS developed a series of radio soap operas, afternoon talk shows, and an all-night easy listening music show, Music 'til Dawn. It was hosted by Bob Hall and sponsored by American Airlines. During this time, WCBS featured well-known personalities including Arthur Godfrey, future CBS News President Bill Leonard, author Emily Kimbrough, and folk singer Oscar Brand.
''Fear on Trial'' controversy
In the 1950s, one of the stations daytime hosts, John Henry Faulk, was part of an anti-blacklisting wing that assumed leadership of the flagship New York chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists broadcasters' union.After Faulk and WCBS came under pressure from anti-Communist group Aware, Inc., Faulk and attorney Louis Nizer sued Aware, Inc. for libel, a case often considered one of the key turning points in the battle against McCarthyism. Faulk was supported by fellow CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, who was tipped off to Faulk's plight by Carl Sandburg. According to Murrow biographer Joe Persico, Murrow gave Faulk the money he needed to retain Nizer as his lawyer. Faulk finally won the case in 1963, in the meantime becoming a popular radio personality in his native Texas, and later, a national television personality as a regular in the cast of the country music/humor variety show Hee Haw.
WCBS fired Faulk because of declining ratings while he waited for the case to come to trial. Stanley Cloud and Lynne Olson's book The Murrow Boys asserted that WCBS executive Arthur Hull Hayes admitted on the stand the station's overall ratings, not Faulk's specifically, had slipped.
The controversy became the subject of the 1975 CBS television movie Fear on Trial, based in part on Faulk's autobiography of the same name.
Adoption of news format
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, WCBS evolved into a middle of the road music and personality format, which included limited talk programming. Personalities included morning host Jack Sterling, Bill Randle, and Lee Jordan. Like many MOR stations at the time, WCBS mixed in softer songs by rock-and-roll artists. Its ratings at the time were ordinary compared to the higher ratings at WOR and WNEW, both of which also had MOR formats and more distinct identities. Through it all, the variety show Arthur Godfrey Time remained a weekday mid-morning staple. Eventually, WCBS gained a foothold in local news coverage, bolstered by its standing as CBS's flagship radio station.During the 1960s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, concerned about the station's low ratings, started a process that led to the creation of a news radio format that would become known as "Newsradio 88". Paley hired Clark B. George, then vice-president and general manager of WCBS-TV, to create the new format and turn the station's low ratings around. The format debuted on August 28, 1967 – although on WCBS-FM, because a small airplane had crashed into and destroyed WCBS's AM antenna tower just a few hours earlier. Its original roster of anchors included Charles Osgood, Ed Bradley, Robert Vaughn and Pat Summerall. Later anchors included veteran newscaster Lou Adler, Jim Donnelly, Harvey Hauptman, Bill Lynch, and Gary Maurer.
Initially, the station ran news only during drive time periods, and maintained an MOR format during midday and overnight hours. Within a couple of years, it expanded all-news programming to much of the broadcast day, still excepting overnights. "Newsradio 88" began its transformation into an all-news format in 1970, when the overnight American Airlines-sponsored Music Till Dawn ended in January of that year, and completed the process in 1972, when Godfrey's weekday morning variety show came to an end. The station built a reputation as an all-news powerhouse during the 1970s, and continued with an all-news format until August 2024.
Although WINS usually received the higher Arbitron ratings of the two all-news stations, WCBS typically had the better ratings in the suburbs because of its stronger, non-directional signal, unlike WINS's directional pattern. Its traffic reports and news coverage included more of Long Island and Westchester County than WINS did, and it occasionally allowed room for longer interviews and analysis pieces than WINS. The station was less tightly formatted than WINS, and formatted at half-hour cycles instead of 20-minute cycles. Also unlike WINS, WCBS did not change anchors every thirty minutes during its daily schedule. Instead, each solo anchor or anchor team on weekdays had a set shift from 5a.m. until 8p.m., with two anchors switching every one or two hours after that. On weekends, anchors also alternated every hour.