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| Broadcast area | |
| Frequency | 1170kHz |
| Branding | NewsRadio 1170 WWVA |
| Programming | |
| Language | English |
| Format | News/talk |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | December 13, 1926; 98 years ago (1926-12-13) |
Former frequencies | 860 kHz (1926–1941) |
Call sign meaning | Wheeling, West Virginia |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 44046 |
| Class | A |
| Power | 50,000 watts |
Transmitter coordinates | 40°06′07″N80°52′02″W / 40.10194°N 80.86722°W /40.10194; -80.86722 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen live (viaiHeartRadio) |
| Website | newsradio1170 |
WWVA (1170kHz, NewsRadio 1170) is an AmericanAM radio station inWheeling, West Virginia, owned byiHeartMedia, Inc. and uses the moniker "The Big One".
It is West Virginia's only class A, 50,000–wattclear-channel station, sharing the frequency'sClass A status withKOTV inTulsa, Oklahoma, andKJNP in North Pole, Alaska. Its transmitter site is located at a three-tower facility inSt. Clairsville, Ohio.
During the day, a single, nondirectional tower beams its full power to northern West Virginia, southwesternPennsylvania (includingPittsburgh), and easternOhio (as far asAkron). At night, power is fed to all three towers in a directional pattern to protect KOTV. Even with this restriction, it can still be heard in most of the eastern two-thirds of the United States, as well as most of Canada, with a good radio.
WWVA is one of the Local Primary 1 Emergency Alert System stations in the Wheeling area.
The BloomDaddy Experience hosts the AM-Drive portion of WWVA.The Glenn Beck Program,The Sean Hannity Show, andThe Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show air in late mornings, middays, afternoons, and early evenings, respectively. WWVA airs paid religious programming in the late evenings andCoast to Coast AM in the overnight.This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal is also carried in the early morning.
WWVA producesExtension Calling, a local agricultural education program recorded by theOhio State University andWest Virginia Universityextension agents, aired Sunday mornings for over 40 years.[citation needed]
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WWVA began broadcasting at 2:00 am on December 13, 1926, when John Stroebel threw the switch that sent power to a home-built 50-watt transmitter in the basement of his home. One week earlier, the Commerce Department granted a broadcast license on 860 kHz to the radio station WWVA. In its first year of operation, it broadcast to listeners with home-madecrystal sets, principally from Stroebel's own home. The call letters are derived from the words Wheeling, West Virginia (WWVA), as U.S. postal codes were once written out with three letters such as WVA for West Virginia, hence Wheeling, WVA became "WWVA".
Through the years, WWVA has been granted several power increases. In May 1941, the FCC moved WWVA to 1170, and in August of that same year, granted it the highest power for AM stations: 50,000 watts. With the increase, WWVA became the most powerful AM station in West Virginia.
WWVA has changed hands many times over the years. Past owners includeFidelity Investments, West Virginia Broadcasting Corporation,Storer Broadcasting, Basic Communications,Screen Gems Radio - a division ofColumbia Pictures,Coca-Cola, Price Broadcasting, Osborn Communications, Atlantic Star Communications, AMFM Inc., and Clear Channel Communications.
WWVA's broadcast history includes the airing of such notable live broadcasts as PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower's 1952 visit to the Wheeling area.
In the 1980s, WWVA briefly enjoyed a reputation as one of the leading radio news operations in the country, and won several national news-reporting awards under the leadership of prominent broadcast journalists such as Jim Forsyth and Colleen Marshall, but that reputation faded in the 1990s. Harvey, however, remained on the station's schedule, as did the legendaryJamboree USA andJamboree in the Hills broadcasts. TheWWVA Jamboree broadcasts started on January 7, 1933, and were even transmitted to troops abroad duringWorld War II.
Under Basic Communications ownership, theJamboree became the centerpiece of an all-contemporarycountry western format starting on November 8, 1965, a format that saw ratings skyrocket weeks after it debuted. "This is WWVA, the big country" was their signature. In 1970, the studios and theJamboree moved to theCapitol Music Hall, a civic center that is the largest in West Virginia.
This country music format lasted until November 1997, when WWVA abandoned it in favor of news/talk. Assumption of ownership by Clear Channel Communications resulted in the addition of such hosts asRush Limbaugh andGlenn Beck. A series of cost-cutting moves in January 2004, resulted in the elimination of both local talk hosts (George Kellas and Jim Harrington) and most of the news department. Coinciding with this was an attempt to relocate the station toStow, Ohio, under an FCC majorconstruction permit four weeks later. This application was withdrawn in August 2004.
Since then, much of WWVA's programming emulates regional sister stationWHLO inAkron, Ohio. One local link to the station's past was the afternoon drive show hosted by former sportscaster Steve Novotney, but he was also fired from WWVA in November 2006. At the time, the only local talk show remaining on WWVA wasSaturday Sports Day with John Simonson, but WWVA, then in negotiations with new ownership, made a bold move when they paid more money to David Bloomquist to export hisBloomdaddy Experience from rival local station,WKKX in late May/early June 2007. The move was controversial (though the reason given by WKKX to let Bloomquist go was in connection with theDon Imus Rutgers controversy that transpired onMSNBC around that same time), as WKKX members appeared bitter about the exit. Clear Channel began to syndicateBloomdaddy through the Northeast and Midwest after the cancellation ofThe War Room with Quinn and Rose in November 2013.
The Original Wheeling Radio Jamboree (formerlyJamboree USA) is the second-longest running program in radio history (The Grand Ole Opry onWSMNashville is the oldest, having first aired in 1925). However, theJamboree was dropped from WWVA's schedule in December 2008, and went to WKKX for a time. In 2015, it was picked up by community stationWWOV-LP/101.1.
On August 4, 2010, a severe thunderstorm, classified as a "down-burst" by the National Weather Service,[2] pushed through the Wheeling area, knocking the three–tower array, located in nearbySt. Clairsville, Ohio, to the ground. The station was taken completely off the air and took its programming to sister stationWBBD on August 5.[2][3][4] On August 5, 2010, at 10:30 pm, transmissions on 1170 AM were restored using temporary equipment.[5]
On November 16, 2006, WWVA,WOVK,WVKF,WKWK,WEGW, andWBBD were announced for sale as part of Clear Channel's divestiture of almost 450 small and middle-market radio properties in the U.S. The Clear Channel Wheeling stations were initially slated to be sold to Florida-basedGoodRadio.TV LLC in May 2007, but the deal soon collapsed prior to FCC approval.
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