1050 ESPN Radio

WEPN (1050 kHz) is an all-sports AM radio station licensed to New York, New York. The station is owned-and-operated by Good Karma Brands and its transmitter site is located in North Bergen, New Jersey.

The 1050 AM facility in New York signed on in 1922 as WHN. For the majority of its existence under these call letters, as well as during its 14-year stint as WMGM, the station broadcast several different music-based formats, finally assuming a country music format in 1973. In 1987, WHN dropped its country format to become the first radio station dedicated entirely to sports programming, changing its call letters to WFAN. A series of transactions in the late 1980s resulted in WFAN's format and call letters moving in October 1988 to 660 AM (on which WFAN has continued to broadcast since), with the brokered programming format and call letters of The Forward-owned WEVD (previously on 97.9 FM) being moved to 1050 AM in February 1989. In 2001, The Walt Disney Company took control of the station (later buying it and renaming it to WEPN in 2003) and transformed it into a full-time affiliate of its ESPN Radio network. In 2012, WEPN became an affiliate of the Spanish-language ESPN Deportes Radio network, reverting to broadcasting the English-language ESPN Radio upon ESPN Deportes Radio's shutdown in 2019.

Since its return to ESPN Radio programming in 2019, the station has largely become a passthrough for the national ESPN Radio lineup (including programs not cleared by WEPN-FM) and overflow play-by-play rights, including most New York Islanders games, and some New York Rangers games.

History

The 1050 frequency has a long history prior to this format. Starting in the 1920s as WHN, its programming was a standard mix of music, news, weather and drama. It was renamed WMGM in the late 1940s, continuing the same format until a switch to rock & roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As WHN again, it played adult standards in the 1960s and country music in the 1970s and 1980s (the format it was best known for). In the late 1980s as WFAN it was the original frequency for the very successful first of its kind all-sports station. Then began a truly convoluted set of ownership, call letter, and format changes from the Spanish language WUKQ to WEVD, a low-rated brokered station in the 1990s, to today's incarnation as WEPN.

WHN (1922–1948)

Originally owned by the ''Ridgewood Times'' newspaper, WHN was one of the first radio stations in New York City, going on the air on March 18, 1922, at AM frequency 833 kilocycles. The station's schedule was not originally published in its owner's radio page. The first mention of the station in the press may have been in the ''Brooklyn Eagle'' of April 9, 1922, with the following schedule: 9-11 a.m., Hour For Women; 12:15 p.m., Lunch Hour Gossip; 3:15, Afternoon Tea Discussion; 4:15, Radio Gossip For Amateurs, Boy Scout News. The "Radio Gossip" appears to have been instructions on how to build or operate a radio set by E.H. Lewis of the New York Y.M.C.A. Radio School. Before the end of April, WHN had added a two-hour Sunday afternoon program of religious music and a brief sermon, and augmented its Monday through Saturday programming with a talk on real estate at 6:15 p.m., and a children's bedtime story by James Baldwin at 7:15, followed by jazz or another talk.

The station was sharing 360 meters with WJZ, WWZ and WOR.

In March 1924, the station was sued by AT&T, which claimed that WHN failed to pay it for a commercial broadcasting license.Doerksen, Clifford J. (2011).
American Babel: Rogue Radio Broadcasters of the Jazz Age
'. University of Pennsylvania Press. Chapter 2. Retrieved August 21, 2018.Jaker, Bill; Sulek, Frank; Kanze, Peter (2008).
The Airwaves of New York: Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area, 1921–1996
'. McFarland & Company. p. 83-88. Retrieved August 21, 2018. However, public opinion turned against AT&T, with the public beginning to view AT&T as a monopolist, and AT&T began to fear an antitrust investigation. AT&T backed away from its lawsuit and agreed to settle out of court, with WHN paying $1,500 for a patent license. AT&T never again sued a broadcaster for failing to pay it for a commercial broadcasting license.

The station played jazz and contemporary dance music, including Sophie Tucker, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington, as well as broadcasting Columbia University football games. In 1928 the station was bought by the Loew's Theatre Organization. During the 1920s the station's frequency changed to 830, 760, and then 1010.History Cards for WEPN
fcc.gov. Retrieved August 21, 2018. In the 1930s it broadcast the ''Major Bowes Amateur Hour'', which was picked up by the CBS Radio Network.

In 1933, WHN became a full-time station when it acquired the licenses of WRNY and WQAO-WPAP with approval by the Federal Radio Commission on January 31 and February 3, respectively.

In 1938, WHN hosted a show called ''Whiz Kids''.

WHN made its final frequency change to 1050 in 1941. During the 1940s the programs ''Radio Newsreel'' and ''Newsreel Theater'' were prototypes for what later became the all-news radio format. The station broadcast Brooklyn Dodgers games with Red Barber as well as the New York Giants and New York Rangers with Marty Glickman.

WMGM (1948–1962)

On September 15, 1948, the station changed its call letters to WMGM, reflecting Loew's then-ownership of movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The station had a diversified format that included pop standard hits, drama, talk, and sports, and briefly featured New York talk host Barry Gray.

In May of 1956, the station switched to playing Top 40 rock and roll hits, which covered a broad spectrum of music. The '50s brand of Top 40 played by WMGM and its competitors included what might today be considered rhythm and blues and country music, in addition to popular instrumentals (Percy Faith's 1960 "Theme from A Summer Place" and Acker Bilk's 1962 "Stranger on the Shore" hit the top of the charts during this era). WMGM was overall more up-tempo than the competition, featuring artists like Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Lymon, the Crystals, the Tokens, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, Brook Benton, Ricky Nelson, and Bill Haley. Playlists were narrower and more predictable than mainstream MOR stations'. WMGM's deejay lineup included morning man Ted Brown and the Redhead (Ted's then-wife Rhoda), Jerry Marshall, Peter Tripp, Norm Stevens, Dick Shepherd, Bob Lewis, Ed Stokes and Bob Callen. Among its newsreaders were Bill Edmunds, Dick DeFrietas and Aime Govin. During its Top 40 incarnation, WMGM was for a time home to New York Yankees baseball with Mel Allen, Red Barber and Phil Rizzuto. Ex-athletes Marty Glickman and Gussie Moran worked Yankees pre- and post-game shows from the studio.

WMGM had a theme song incorporating the names of many of its DJs in the 1960s. The words were:

''He was a US Marshal and Jerry was his name.''
''So they called him Jerry Marshall and widespread was his fame.''
''He went to catch the outlaws, Bob Callen and Ted Brown''
''Who were roping old Dick Shephard's sheep and herding them to town.''
''Sing a song about Western hero men will never ride the range again.''
''They're on 1050 WMGM.''

By 1962, with 1010 WINS, 770 WABC, and 570 WMCA also playing predominantly rock and roll music, WMGM-1050 was sold by Loew's to Storer Communications, which owned mostly TV stations, but also owned WIBG, a rock and roll radio station less than away in Philadelphia.

WHN again (1962–1987)

Storer immediately dropped Top 40 for slow-paced standards and beautiful music, the province of much of FM radio at the time. The station was renamed WHN again on February 28, 1962, with special permission of the FCC. Three-letter call sign sets are a rarity and have not been issued to broadcast stations since the early 1930s.

Through the 1960s, WHN became New York City's Mutual Broadcasting System affiliate. On-air hosts included Jim Ameche, and early on, the comedy team of Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding (Bob and Ray). (Morning host Ted Brown remained with WHN for only a short time of transition, heading eventually to MOR WNEW. The station played vocalists such as Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Patti Page, and Johnny Mathis, plus a heavy dose of instrumentalist groups, notably Percy Faith, Al Hirt, Ray Conniff, and Henry Mancini. The station was about 75% vocal and 25% instrumental. Ratings were respectable, but the demographic was older by a generation or two. In 1968, WHN gradually began mixing in softer songs by artists like Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, The Beatles, The Association, and others with their easy listening format. Still, the ratings were below average. By 1970, the station had evolved into more of a MOR format and less of an easy listening format and by 1972 evolved into more of an adult contemporary format similar to what WNEW was then doing.

WHN eventually picked up New York Mets baseball (with announcers Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner), after the team's original NYC flagship, WABC 770, dropped the rights. The station became a launching pad for the radio sports broadcasting career of Marv Albert, who hosted the "Interwoven Scoreboard" after Mets games and later on reintroduced New York fans to the Knicks and Rangers on radio. Initially, Rangers games were broadcast in small doses: the last two minutes of the first and second periods, then the entire third period. The entire metropolitan area enjoyed Red Holzman's miracle 1969–70 Knicks championship run, much of which was blacked out on TV.

Overall though, WHN's ratings were still low. After a lot of research, on February 26, 1973, WHN became a country music station. The New York Metropolitan Area had never been a country music hot spot, and prior to WHN, the area had only had two country music stations: WJRZ in Hackensack, New Jersey and WTHE in Mineola, New York. In the early years of WHN's country format, it featured on-air personalities such as Larry Kenney, Big Wilson and Jack Spector. Some of these were holdovers from the previous middle of the road format. As a country music station, they played artists like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Lynn Anderson, Kenny Rogers, Mel Tillis, Charley Pride, Mickey Gilley, Ronnie Milsap, and many more. Also, they mixed in non-country and country-pop cross-over artists that had country-friendly songs such as The Eagles, Elvis Presley, Anne Murray, Olivia Newton-John, Linda Ronstadt, and others. Over the years, as WHN evolved as a country station, on-air personalities such as Dan Daniel, Alan Colmes, Jerry Carroll and others moved in. During this era, WHN was programmed by Ed Salamon, who was inducted into the Country Radio Hall of Fame in 2006. Salamon and promotional partner Dale Pon were able to walk the line between country music like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and latter day Elvis, Top 40 radio programming tactics, and the late 70s rock artists –including The Eagles, Ronstadt, Newton-John, and Rogers– who had absorbed country into their contemporary pop– and, using extensive, award winning television and transit advertising, into one of the most successful Country radio stations in history.

In the late 1970s, Mutual Radio bought WHN from Storer. In 1980, WHN got some competition when WRVR was sold to Viacom and dropped jazz for country and became WKHK (also known as "Kick 106 FM"). As a result, ratings went down for WHN. They added New York Mets baseball to their lineup in 1983. WHN had previously carried the Mets from 1972 until 1974.

In 1984, WKHK became "Lite FM" WLTW, playing a soft adult contemporary format. Without direct competition, WHN remained country, with decent ratings. In 1985 Doubleday Broadcasting bought WHN. In 1986 Emmis Communications bought WHN. Emmis added sports talk in the evenings, but kept the country format the rest of the day until 1987. In late April 1987, Emmis announced that WHN would drop country on July 1 for an '' all-sports'' format, the first of its kind on radio. They would drop the WHN calls and become WFAN (''The Fan''). In May, NBC announced that Adult Contemporary WYNY (today's WQHT) would go country on July 1. Dan Taylor signed off WHN's 25-year history at 3 p.m. that day with " For The Good Times" by Ray Price.

WFAN (1987–1988)

The first voice heard on WFAN was that of Suzyn Waldman with a sports update at 3:00 pm, followed by the first show, which was hosted by Jim Lampley. Waldman would report for the station, covering the Yankees and Knicks, for 14 years. Other personalities that hosted shows besides Lampley in the 1050 kHz years included Bill Mazer, Pete Franklin, Greg Gumbel and Ed Coleman. WFAN also inherited broadcast rights to the defending World Series champion New York Mets from WHN, who had held the rights for several years. Ratings were low initially but gradually improved.

In early 1988, General Electric, which now owned NBC through its purchase of RCA two years earlier, announced that it would sell off the NBC Radio division. In February of that year, GE made a multi-station deal with Emmis; in New York, the WNBC and WYNY licenses were included in the sale. This ended up giving Emmis control of four frequencies: 97.1 FM, 103.5 FM, 660 AM and 1050 AM, whereas duopolies were not permitted yet by the Federal Communications Commission.

On September 22, 1988, Emmis ended up moving their Dance/R&B "Hot" format and call letters WQHT over to the 97.1 frequency (while selling the 103.5 facility and WYNY's intellectual property over to Westwood One; that station would later become WKTU in 1996), and then moved WFAN's format and call letters from 1050 to 660 on October 7, at 5:30 p.m., replacing "66 WNBC", which signed off forever.

WUKQ (1988–1989)

As for the 1050 license, the Spanish Broadcasting System bought it, intending to swap it with cash to ''The Jewish Daily Forward'' for their FM station, WEVD (97.9 FM). However, Spanish Broadcasting already owned WSKQ (620 AM) in Newark, New Jersey

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