Editing WWKB (section)

==History==
===Early years===
The station began operations, as WKBW, in late October 1926. It was originally licensed to Coatsworth & Diebold,<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112106763060&view=1up&seq=413 "New Stations"], ''Radio Service Bulletin'', October 30, 1926, page 3.</ref> but ownership was soon changed to the Churchill Evangelistic Association.<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112106763060&view=1up&seq=431 "Alterations and Corrections"], ''Radio Service Bulletin'', November 30, 1926, page 7.</ref> Founder Clinton Churchill's application to the [[Department of Commerce]] for a station license reportedly requested assignment of the call letters "WAY"; however, this call sign was already in use by a ship, the ''Admiral Dewey'',<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3221813&view=1up&seq=310 "Commercial Ship Radio Stations"], ''Commercial and Government Radio Stations of the United States'' (edition June 30, 1926), page 12.</ref> so the station was instead randomly assigned "WKBW" from a sequential list of available call signs. Churchill adopted a slogan of "Well Known Bible Witness" based on the call letters, and later usage referred to the middle letters "KB" as standing for "King of Buffalo", reflecting its 50,000-watt transmitting power.

WKBW was founded during a period when the U.S. government had temporarily lost its authority to assign transmitting frequencies.<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051148388&view=1up&seq=182 "Federal Regulation of Radio Broadcasting"] (July 8, 1926) by Acting Attorney General William J. Donovan, ''Official Opinions of the Attorneys General of the United States'', Volume 35, 1929, pages 126-132.</ref> There were immediate complaints from the region that WKBW, on its self-assigned frequency, was badly interfering with the reception of multiple other stations.<ref>"No Change in Tabernacle Radio", ''Buffalo Evening Times'', October 26, 1926, page 10.</ref> At the end of 1926 the station was reported transmitting on a non-standard frequency of 827&nbsp;kHz.<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112106763060&view=1up&seq=460 "Broadcasting stations, alphabetically by call signals"], ''Radio Service Bulletin'', December 31, 1926, page 18. The standard government practice was to assign stations to frequencies ending in zero.</ref>

The [[Federal Radio Commission]] (FRC) was formed in early 1927, which restored the U.S. government authority to assign station frequencies. This resulted in a series of frequency shifts that year for WKBW, including reassignments to 980, 1010 and finally 1380&nbsp;kHz. On November 11, 1928, as a result of the FRC's [[General Order 40]], WKBW changed to 1470&nbsp;kHz, a "high power regional" frequency,<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c021003683&view=1up&seq=249 "Revised list of broadcasting stations, by frequencies, effective 3 a.m., November 11, 1928, eastern standard time"], ''Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission'' (for the year ended June 30, 1928), page 213.</ref> and raised its power to 5,000 watts—the first Buffalo station to increase to that level. In early 1930 WKBW, along with [[KOKC (AM)|KFJF]] in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was reassigned to 1480&nbsp;kHz, another "high power regional" frequency.<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435066938374&view=1up&seq=217 "Alterations and Corrections"], ''Radio Service Bulletin'', February 28, 1930, page 23.</ref>

In March 1941 WKBW inaugurated a new transmitter plant south of Buffalo in the town of Hamburg, increased power to 50,000 watts around the clock and shifted to its current "clear channel" frequency of 1520&nbsp;kHz as a result of [[North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement]], with the provision that as "Class I-B" stations, it and its Oklahoma City counterpart, now KOMA, had to maintain directional antennas at night to mutually protect each other from interference.<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32437010939748&view=1up&seq=587 "Assignments of United States Standard Broadcast Stations Listed by Frequency"], page 1442.</ref>

During the 1930s, WKBW shared a CBS affiliation with then-sister station WGR, and in the 1940s, was affiliated with the [[NBC Blue]] network and its corporate successor [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], running as a conventional full service network affiliated station also offering local news and music programming. The station later broadcast a wide variety of ethnic, [[country and western]] and religious programming when not carrying network offerings, including pioneer [[rock and roll]] and [[rhythm and blues]] shows launched in the 1950s by disk jockey George "Hounddog" Lorenz, later founder of pioneer FM urban station [[WBLK]]. [[Stan Barron]] served as the station's sports director in this era.

===Top 40 era===
[[File:WKBW radio advertisement (1958).gif|thumb|right|170px|In 1958, WKBW introduced its energetic "FUTURSonic" format.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/broadcastingtele55unse/page/n180/mode/1up "WKBW"] (advertisement), ''Broadcasting'', July 14, 1958, page 67.</ref>]]On July 4, 1958, a few months before companion station [[WKBW-TV]] (channel 7) was launched, WKBW radio abandoned its adult approach and was converted into a personality-driven full service [[Top 40]] [[music radio]] station, featuring foreground personalities, a tight playlist of current hits and an aggressive local news department, which it continued to program with great success for over 20 years.<ref>[https://buffalobroadcasters.com/archives-history/wkbw-am-history/ "KB goes Kaboom with Futuresonic Radio!"] by Martin Biniasz (buffalobroadcasters.com)</ref> It was one of the first stations to present traffic reports in cooperation with police and state and local authorities. Churchill sold WKBW-AM-TV to Capital Cities Broadcasting in 1961, earning a handsome return on his original investment of 35 years earlier.

During the exclusive [[Monkees]] "Sleepy Jean"/"[[Daydream Believer]]" broadcast in 1967, a recording was made in Sidi Yahia, [[Morocco]].<ref>[http://fmdx.usclargo.com/hearditonam/ I Heard it on the AM Radio-WKBW heard in Morocco-1967]</ref><ref>[http://fmdx.usclargo.com/hearditonam/WKBW%201520%20MonKees%20Exclusive.ra audio file of WKBW playing "Sleepy Jean"/"Daydream Believer"-1967]</ref> On Halloween Night 1968, writer Dan Kriegler and then-program director [[Jefferson Kaye]] (later the voice of [[WPVI-TV]] in [[Philadelphia]], co-owned with WKBW-TV in 1971) commemorated the 30th anniversary of Orson Welles' 1938 ''[[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|War of the Worlds]]'' by [[The War of the Worlds (1968 radio drama)|re-making the infamous broadcast]], updating the storyline and changing locations to make it significant to Buffalo listeners. Kaye (the voice of [[NFL Films]]) did another equally well-received remake of "War of the Worlds" in 1972 using a revised script and some new cast members including Jackson Armstrong and newsmen Jim McLaughlin and Joe Downey. Both versions have been recorded and collected by aficionados of classic radio programming.

During the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, WKBW became a major force in pop radio over the East Coast. KB had a 50,000-watt transmitter (the maximum power allowed) at their transmitter site in Hamburg. This high power blanketed the entire eastern U.S. with [[Top 40]] music every night, and the station actually had a better signal at night in the western Boston suburbs than Boston's own Top 40 station, [[WMEX (AM)|WMEX]], located at 1510, right next door to WKBW. Disk jockeys included future ''[[Price Is Right]]'' announcer [[Rod Roddy]], [[Dick Biondi]], [[Danny Neaverth]], [[Big Jack Armstrong|Jack Armstrong]], [[Joey Reynolds]], Steve Mitchell, [[Bud Ballou]], [[Norm Marshall]], [[Tom Shannon (broadcaster)|Tom Shannon]], and the Amazin' [[Jim Quinn]]. [[Art Wander]] served as news director from 1956 to 1958, followed by [[Irv Weinstein]] from 1958 to 1964; [[Stan Barron]], a holdover from the pre-rock and roll era, handled sports until his departure in 1965. Mike Joseph, later creator of the [[Hot Hits]] format, was a major off-air contributor to the station's approach to the "futuresonic" Top-40 format.<ref>{{cite web |title=NERW 5/14/18: "Hot Hits" Creator Dies |url=https://www.fybush.com/nerw-20180514/ |website=fybush.com |access-date=August 27, 2019 |date=May 14, 2018}}</ref>

Beginning in the late 1960s, WKBW devoted a nightly hour of programming to [[progressive rock (radio format)|underground music]] with its "Mixed Bag" block, one of the few commercial AM stations to embrace the [[free-form radio|freeform]] format; it was highly unusual for a 50,000-watt AM station to embrace the format that had theretofore been largely an [[FM radio|FM]] and noncommercial phenomenon.<ref>Schlaerth, J. Don (February 12, 1969). "Underground Music Comes to the Surface." ''[[Buffalo Evening News]]''.</ref> In 1969, WKBW became the first radio station to air cuts from [[The Beatles]]' unreleased ''Get Back'' album. The recordings had been compiled from material The Beatles recorded in London in January 1969, the same sessions that would be used in The Beatles' ''Let It Be album'', released in May 1970. Although WKBW was the first station to air the "Get Back" tapes, [[WWBX|WBCN]] in Boston would be better known for playing them, as its broadcast of the tapes was preserved on a high-quality reel, which spawned several widely circulated bootlegs of The Beatles.

A recreated example of WKBW as an early 1960s-era pop radio station can be found on Ron Jacobs' "Cruisin' 1960" ([[Watermark Inc.|Increase Records]] INCR 5–2005). This recreation features [[Dick Biondi]] and includes several classic rock and pop songs of that era, contemporary commercials, and DJ patter.

===The 1980s and 1990s===
The station continued with the Top 40 format until 1981, when, facing the emergence of FM competition, the station evolved to more of an [[adult contemporary]] format. By 1983, they leaned toward rock and roll oldies while still playing AC songs. They also added [[talk radio]] shows in the evenings by 1984. On June 15 of that year, WKBW began broadcasting in [[C-QUAM]] [[AM stereo]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Offenders of the Faith|url=http://users.hfx.eastlink.ca:80/~amstereo/offenders.htmwebsite=eastlink.ca|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010109103400/http://users.hfx.eastlink.ca:80/~amstereo/offenders.htm|archive-date=January 9, 2001}}</ref>

In 1986, the WKBW stations were broken up as a result of Capital Cities' purchase of the [[American Broadcasting Company]]. WKBW radio was sold to Price Communications, who subsequently changed the station's call letters to the current WWKB on January 3, mainly to keep the long-standing "''KB''" slogan (which was necessitated due to an FCC regulation in effect then that forbade TV and radio stations in the same city, but with different owners from sharing the same call letters; the former calls remained on now-former sister station WKBW-TV, which Capital Cities/ABC sold to Queen City Broadcasting). In 1987, the station moved to a full service oldies format and on June 18, 1988, the station dropped live programming and switched to satellite-fed oldies. On March 6, 1989, WWKB flipped to business talk as part of the "Business Radio Network".<ref>{{cite web |title=WWKB Flips To Biz News/Talk|website=worldradiohistory.com |publisher=R&R Radio Records |url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Archive-RandR/1980s/1989/RR-1989-03-03.pdf#page=4 |page=4|access-date=August 27, 2019 |date=March 3, 1989}}</ref> It flipped to hot talk in 1993. WWKB aired [[J. R. Gach]] from [[WGR]] as the afternoon drive show and established syndicated hot talkers [[The Howard Stern Show]] (by this time now almost exclusively on the FM dial), [[G. Gordon Liddy]], [[Laura Schlessinger]], [[The Fabulous Sports Babe]], [[Tom Leykis]] and (briefly, before Gach's arrival) Don and Mike. [[John Otto (radio personality)|John Otto]] hosted a late night program in this era. Stern's and Gach's presence was not enough to revive KB's ratings in what was then a three way news-talk battle also involving market-leading [[WBEN (AM)|WBEN]] and contender [[WGR]], which itself later switched to its current format of sports talk and play by play.

By 1996, the format was flipped again to [[country music]] as "Real Country 1520 KB" (this despite there being three other country stations in Buffalo, [[WYRK]], [[WLKK|107.7]] and [[WXRL]]). Following that in 1998, was an all sports format using the now-defunct mono-only One on One Sports network, which moved to 107.7 after two years. On January 29, 2000, WWKB flipped to a simulcast of sister station [[WKSE]]. This lasted until June of that year, when it returned to business talk, a low-cost, albeit unpopular format.

Price Communications presided over the collapse of its entire radio portfolio including WWKB and filed for [[Chapter 11 bankruptcy]] in 1992. After reorganization, WWKB was sold to Keymarket Communications in 1994. Around the same time, Keymarket acquired one of WWKB's longtime rivals, [[WBEN (AM)|WBEN]], from locally based owners at a premium price. Keymarket then sold both WWKB and WBEN to St. Louis-based [[River City Broadcasting]] in 1995. [[Sinclair Broadcast Group]] acquired WWKB and WBEN in 1996 through its purchase of River City. A year later, Sinclair bought WGR, bringing three of Buffalo's heritage AM stations under its portfolio. In 1999, Sinclair decided to divest its radio stations, selling most of them, including WWKB, WBEN and WGR, to [[Entercom Communications]].

===The Legend returns===
On January 27, 2003, WWKB returned to music, playing [[oldies]] from the station's heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, featuring artists such as [[Elvis Presley]], The Beatles, [[The Beach Boys]], [[Frankie Lymon]], [[The Four Seasons (band)|The Four Seasons]], [[The Who]], The Four Tops, [[The Everly Brothers]], [[Fats Domino]], [[Ricky Nelson]], Lovin Spoonful, and many others. The oldies format was an attempt to recreate the station's history as a popular music station (and was part of a nationwide [[fad]] of "real oldies" formats on [[AM radio]] stations in the early 2000s). While it maintained the official WWKB calls for [[station identification]], it also played the original "WKBW Buffalo" jingles and featured many of the classic WKBW jocks including Armstrong and Neaverth. While not performing as well in [[Arbitron]] ratings as it had in its golden past, the revived "WKBW" earned the best ratings for the station since the 1990s, with approximately a 2 share, and was beginning to grow.

===Progressive talk era===
Personality oldies has been a successful format in many markets, and Entercom salesman Buddy Shula would indeed find success with essentially the same format (including, for a time, Danny Neaverth and Tom Donahue) on [[WECK]] several years later. Nevertheless, Entercom found the personality oldies format too expensive to maintain in Buffalo for only a 2 share, and so on February 6, 2006, WWKB ended a three-year run as an oldies station with a format change to predominantly syndicated progressive talk. A syndicated overnight show hosted by former WKBW personality Joey Reynolds survived the format change. WWKB maintained their liberal talk format for another seven years. On April 16, 2008, the station started airing [[Randi Rhodes]] of the Nova-M Radio network, who had been fired from Air America.

The classic "WKBW" was honored by [[XM Satellite Radio]] on November 30, 2007, in a five-hour "Sonic Sound Salute" on The 60s on 6.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

On July 3, 2008, ForgottenBuffalo.com celebrated the 50th anniversary of KB's format switch to Top 40 with a sidewalk sock hop. The event was held in front of the original studios located at 1430 Main Street in Buffalo. KB alumni Danny Neaverth, Stan Roberts and Tom Donahue attended. A limited edition poster commemorating the anniversary was produced.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

As late as 2010 there were ongoing reports alleging that [[Entercom]] had cut back WWKB's power to 10,000 watts, to reduce electrical costs. However, Entercom did not file with the [[Federal Communications Commission]] to do so, and such a reduction was unconfirmed; indications are that the station's signal and range remained normal.<ref>Fybush, Scott (March 22, 2010). [https://www.fybush.com/NERW/2010/100322/nerw.html Goodbye, Luv - Ron Lundy Remembered]. ''NorthEast Radio Watch''. Retrieved March 22, 2010.</ref>

===ESPN 1520===
On September 5, 2013, WWKB flipped to sports radio under the brand ''ESPN 1520AM''. The [[ESPN Radio]] affiliation had previously been on [[WGR]] from the network's launch in 1992 until 2013; WGR's increased emphasis on local programming (and, since ''[[The Phil Hendrie Show]]'' moved to an earlier time slot, a lack of progressive talk programs to air in the overnight hours) prompted [[Entercom]] to move the ESPN affiliation to a full-time signal. The local sports broadcasts and [[brokered programming|brokered weekend programs]] that WWKB carried under its previous format continue under the ESPN affiliation; the station launched with a broadcast of the [[Buffalo Sabres]]' participation in the [[Traverse City]] Prospects Tournament.<ref>Pergament, Alan (September 6, 2013). [http://blogs.buffalonews.com/talkintv/2013/09/sabres-games-in-nhl-prospect-tourney-on-new-espn-buffalo.html Sabres games in NHL prospect tourney on new ESPN Buffalo]. ''The Buffalo News''. Retrieved September 5, 2013.</ref>

The station was primarily a straight simulcast of the ESPN Radio feed, with the exception of [[The Jim Rome Show]], at the time part of what was then known as [[CBS Sports]] Radio. Rome had previously aired on WGR for over a decade prior before the station opted to rearrange its local programming and move the somewhat lower-rated (and less locally relevant) Rome to WWKB.

===The Bet 1520===
On September 13, 2021, WWKB flipped to sports gambling, branded as "The Bet Buffalo".<ref>[https://radioinsight.com/headlines/212879/audacys-bets-on-buffalo/ Audacy Bets On Buffalo] Radioinsight - September 14, 2021</ref> Affiliations with ''The Jim Rome Show'' and the station's existing live sports programming remained unchanged.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/sports/news/wager-tainment-comes-to-buffalo|title = 'Wager-tainment' comes to Buffalo|date = September 13, 2021|author=Audacy.com}}</ref>