WAVZ (1300 AM) is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

broadcasting a

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format. Licensed to

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

, United States. The station is owned by

iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

. The station switched formats in time for

Super Bowl XLI Super Bowl XLI was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears to decide the National Football League (NFL) champio ...

on February 4, 2007. WAVZ, as a news station, received the 1950 Alfred I. duPont Award, which was received by president

Victor Knauth Victor Whitman Knauth (10 June 1895 – 2 September 1977) was a journalist, publisher, and broadcasting executive. Knauth served as the editor-in-chief and an owner of ''The Bridgeport Times-Star'', a newspaper published in Bridgeport, Connecticu ...

. WAVZ received a second duPont Award for its work in 1960. The station, then owned by Kops-Monahan Communications, Inc. was formerly known as the New Waves, or Lucky 13 WAVZ (pronounced "waves") and was a popular

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...

radio station in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1950s the station used a jingle with the following lyrics: "There are waves in the navy and waves in your hair, and people wave their hands when they're going anywhere, but the greatest waves there can be are the radio waves on WAVZ" During the 1960s, WAVZ competed with WDEE (1220, now WATX), and later with WNHC (1340, now WYBC) for radio listeners. WAVZ generally won most of the rating "books." As FM radio became more popular, the station's rock music format was shifted to sister FM station WKCI in 1979 by Curtis Hanson and Pete Salant. WKCI had been an easy-listening station but in the summer of 1979 became "KC-101" and began playing adult contemporary music using many of the then current WAVZ personalities. Due to the success of KC101, Pete Salant a/k/a Pete Stone on WAVZ, left New Haven, Connecticut in 1981 to program WYNY in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. WAVZ became one of the first

Music of Your Life Music of Your Life is an American syndicated music radio format featuring adult standards music. First created by recording executive Al Ham in 1978, the format achieved popularity in the 1980s among AM radio stations in the United States and C ...

stations, airing big band and adult standards. WAVZ and WKCI were sold to Eastern Broadcasting of

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on June 5, 198

Upon the sale of the radio stations, Curtis W. Hansen left in 1982 to create

WEBE WEBE (107.9 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Westport, Connecticut, carrying an adult contemporary format known as "WEBE108". Owned by Connoisseur Media, the station serves both the Greater New Haven and Fairfield County areas. The ...

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

Prior to its current format, the station was a

progressive talk radio Progressive talk radio is a talk radio format devoted to expressing left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoints of news and issues as opposed to conservative talk radio. In the United States, the format has included syndicated and independe ...

station, affiliated with Air America.

References

External links

FCC History Cards for WAVZ
{{iHeartMedia Mass media in New Haven, Connecticut Mass media in New Haven County, Connecticut Sports radio stations in the United States AVZ Radio stations established in 1947 1947 establishments in Connecticut IHeartMedia radio stations ESPN Radio stations