WCCO (830
kHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that on ...
) is a
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
AM 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 ...
in
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
, and owned by
Audacy, Inc.
Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...
Its
studio
A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...
s and offices are located on Second Avenue South in
Downtown Minneapolis
The Central Minneapolis community is located in the central part of the city, consisting of 6 smaller official neighborhoods, and includes Downtown Minneapolis and the central business district. It also includes the many old flour mills, the ...
. WCCO features a
talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...
format
Format may refer to:
Printing and visual media
* Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements
* Paper formats, or paper size standards
* Newspaper format, the size of the paper page
Computing
* File format, particular way that informatio ...
, with frequent newscasts and sports programming. Local hosts are heard most hours of the day and evening, including
Chad Hartman
Chad Hartman is an American radio talk show host on WCCO-AM.
Personal
Hartman is the son of longtime Minnesota sportswriter Sid Hartman.
Hartman graduated from Robbinsdale Armstrong High School. In 1988 he graduated from Arizona State Univer ...
, Vineeta Sawkar, Paul Douglas, Jordana Green and Adam Carter, Jason DeRusha, and Henry Lake.
Overnight, two
syndicated shows are carried: ''Our American Stories with
Lee Habeeb
Lee Habeeb is an American talk radio executive, host, podcaster and essayist. He is the Vice President of Content for the Salem Media Group and is the founder of American Private Radio, and the creator, founder and host of "Our American Stories," ...
'' and ''
America in the Morning with John Trout''. World and national news is supplied by
CBS News Radio
CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. It ...
. WCCO is the
flagship radio station for the
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
team.
WCCO is a
Class A clear-channel station
A clear-channel station is an AM broadcasting, AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from Interference (communication), interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The syste ...
. With 50,000
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
s of power (the maximum permitted) and a
nondirectional signal, WCCO reaches much of
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
and parts of
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
and
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
by day, along with a wide area of the
Central United States
The Central United States is sometimes conceived as between the Eastern and Western as part of a three-region model, roughly coincident with the U.S. Census' definition of the Midwestern United States plus the western and central portions of ...
and
Central Canada
Central Canada (french: Centre du Canada, sometimes the Central provinces) is a region consisting of Canada's two largest and most populous provinces: Ontario and Quebec. Geographically, they are not at the centre of Canada but instead overlap w ...
at night. The
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...
is located off Coon Rapids Boulevard at Lily Street NW in
Coon Rapids. It is also heard on a
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
on co-owned
FM 102.9 KMNB
KMNB (102.9 MHz, "The Wolf") is an American commercial FM radio station in Minneapolis-St. Paul that carries a country radio format. KMNB is owned by Audacy, Inc. Its main transmitter is located on the KMSP Tower in Shoreview, Minnesota, with ba ...
-
HD2.
History
Early years
WCCO first
signed on
Signing may refer to:
* Using sign language
* Signature
A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...
the air on September 4, 1922, as WLAG, known as "the Call of the North". The studios were in the Oak Grove Hotel near
Loring Park
Loring Park is a park in the Loring Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
History
Loring Park was established in 1883 after the passage of the Park Act, which first created the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The park was first ...
in Minneapolis. The station soon had financial trouble and closed in 1924. ''Washburn Crosby Company'', forerunner of
General Mills
General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...
, took over the station and switched the
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...
to WCCO for the company's initials. Broadcasts resumed less than two months later on October 2, 1924, from its current transmitter site in Coon Rapids, and with studios in the then-new
Nicollet Hotel
The Nicollet Hotel, in downtown Minneapolis, was located on a slightly irregular block bounded by Hennepin Avenue, Washington Avenue, Nicollet Avenue and 3rd Street South adjacent to Gateway Park.
The original hotel on the site (often called the ...
.
In 1927, WCCO was one of the original 21 stations of the
NBC Red Network
The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...
. It carried NBC's slate of dramas, comedies, news, sports,
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
s,
game show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or Let's Play, demonstrative and are typically directed b ...
s, and
big-band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...
broadcasts during the "
Golden Age of Radio
The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment, entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcastin ...
".
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
bought WCCO from General Mills in 1932, and switched its
network affiliation
In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or al ...
to the
CBS Radio Network
CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. It ...
. It remains a CBS affiliate.
1950s to the 1990s
In 1952, CBS sold majority control of WCCO to the Murphy and McNally families, who formed
Midwest Radio and Television
Midwest Communications was a broadcasting company based in the Upper Midwest United States.
The company's history dates back to August 1952, when it was formed as Midwest Radio and Television as a merger of WCCO (AM) and WTCN-TV. The company was ...
as a holding company for WCCO radio and its new co-owned television station, Channel 4
WCCO-TV
WCCO-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, broadcasting the CBS network to the Twin Cities area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios ...
. CBS was forced to sell off its stake in the WCCO stations in 1954 due to
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
ownership limits in effect at the time. CBS reacquired the WCCO stations outright in 1992 when Midwest Radio and Television merged with the network.
In the 1950s, as network programming was shifting from radio to television, WCCO switched to a
full-service middle-of-the-road format, including popular music, news, sports, and talk.
Robert Ridder
Robert Blair Ridder (July 21, 1919 – June 24, 2000) was an American ice hockey administrator, media businessman, and philanthropist. He was the founding president of the Minnesota Hockey, Minnesota Amateur Hockey Association, and managed the ...
became president of WCCO in 1952.
In the 1980s, the
playlist
A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sever ...
shifted from middle-of-the-road music toward
adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...
. The music was gradually phased out by the early 1990s, when the format was changed to news, talk, and sports. From 1947 to 1996, WCCO and WCCO-TV won 12
George Foster Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
s, more than any other Twin Cities broadcast outlet.
Signal and transmitter
In the early days of radio, WCCO was a powerful force in the development of better and more powerful transmitters. On November 11, 1928, with the implementation of the
Federal Radio Commission
The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was a government agency that regulated United States radio communication from its creation in 1927 until 1934, when it was succeeded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FRC was established by t ...
's
General Order 40
The Federal Radio Commission's (FRC) General Order 40, dated August 30, 1928, described the standards for a sweeping reorganization of radio broadcasting in the United States. This order grouped the AM radio band transmitting frequencies into thre ...
, WCCO changed its frequency to 810 kHz and was granted clear-channel status. It began broadcasting with 50,000 watts for the first time in September 1932. In the 1930s, two additional 300-foot towers were added to increase the range of the station's signal.
WCCO constructed a new 654-foot tower in Coon Rapids in 1939. This is the same tower used today, although the broadcast frequency was changed to 830 kHz as a result of the 1941
North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement
The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA, es, Convenio Regional Norteamericano de Radiodifusión) refers to a series of international treaties that defined technical standards for AM band (mediumwave) radio stations. These agreem ...
-.
Due to the station's power, as well as Minnesota's mostly flat landscape (with near-perfect
ground conductivity
Ground conductivity refers to the electrical conductivity of the subsurface of the earth. In the International System of Units (SI) it is measured in millisiemens per meter (mS/m).
Radio propagation
Ground conductivity is an extremely importan ...
), WCCO boasts one of the largest coverage areas in the country. During the day, it provides at least B-grade coverage to most of Minnesota's densely populated area (as far north as
Duluth
, settlement_type = City
, nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City
, motto =
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...
and as far south as
Rochester
Rochester may refer to:
Places Australia
* Rochester, Victoria
Canada
* Rochester, Alberta
United Kingdom
*Rochester, Kent
** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area
** History of Rochester, Kent
** HM Prison ...
), plus portions of northern
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
and western
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. Under the right conditions, it reaches into portions of
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...
.
At night, the station's signal typically reaches across 28
U.S. states
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
and three
Canadian province
Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...
s. Certain conditions can make the signal reach much farther. Legendary station personality Howard Viken said that he once picked up the station while he was in the military during World War II, stationed at
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...
in 1943.
Severe weather coverage
WCCO has a longtime reputation of being the station to tune in for emergency information, especially severe weather and school closings in winter. Listeners would call in during severe weather events and describe what they were seeing at their locations, supplementing information from the National Weather Service. For many years, WCCO was famous for its "klaxon" alert tone for tornado warnings. WCCO is also a PEP station for the
Emergency Alert System
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via cable, satellite, or broadcast television, and both ...
.
For a series of live public-service emergency broadcasts in 1965 – the St. Patrick's Day blizzard, the record April floods on the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, and the May 6 onslaught of 24 tornado touchdowns in the Twin Cities area – the station earned the George Foster Peabody, DuPont, and Sigma Delta Chi awards.
FM: W9XHW to WCCO-FM to Lite-FM to BUZ'N/The Wolf
WCCO engineers were experimenting with
frequency modulation
Frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. The technology is used in telecommunications, radio broadcasting, signal processing, and Run-length limited#FM: .280. ...
by 1939, operating W9XHW at 42.3 MHz, but at just 50 watts. With only a handful of Minneapolis residents owning an FM radio, WCCO did not rush into FM broadcasting. As late as 1969, WCCO-FM was broadcasting at 2,700 watts atop the 450-foot
Foshay Tower
The Foshay Tower, now the W Minneapolis – The Foshay hotel, is a skyscraper in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Modeled after the Washington Monument, the building was completed in 1929, months before the stock market crash in October of that year. It ...
in downtown Minneapolis, and only for the minimum number of hours required to keep its FCC license. Meanwhile, several local FM stations had already boosted their power to 100,000 watts and were airing new formats on FM, such as
beautiful music
Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...
and
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
.
Finally in 1973, WCCO-FM station moved its antenna to 1,250 feet near the top of the
Shoreview, Minnesota
Shoreview is a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota. The population was 25,043 at the time of the 2010 census. In 2008, Shoreview ranked fourth in a ''Family Circle'' list of best family towns.
Geography
According to the United States Census Burea ...
, Twin Cities antenna farm, with a power of 100,000 watts. A full day's programming of music and a large news operation could be heard clearly for 150 miles in all directions. By the late 1970s, WCCO-FM 103 had come into its own and established an identity separate from AM 830, with a popular adult contemporary/
soft rock
Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...
sound. In 1983, it became WLTE 102.9 Lite-FM, an identity it kept until Christmas 2011, when it switched to a
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
format as BUZ'N @ 102.9 with the new call letters
KMNB
KMNB (102.9 MHz, "The Wolf") is an American commercial FM radio station in Minneapolis-St. Paul that carries a country radio format. KMNB is owned by Audacy, Inc. Its main transmitter is located on the KMSP Tower in Shoreview, Minnesota, with ba ...
.
![WCCO (AM) logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/WCCO_%28AM%29_logo.svg)
Changes in ratings
WCCO was the top-rated station in the Twin Cities for decades until shifting
demographic
Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.
Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...
s and a decline in listening to AM radio caused a drop in the
Arbitron
Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by mergin ...
and
Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
. Several FM stations, including
classic rock
Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...
92.5
KQRS-FM
KQRS-FM (92.5 FM, KQ92 or 92 KQRS) is a Classic Rock radio station in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. The station is licensed to suburban Golden Valley, transmits from the KMSP-TV tower in Shoreview, and is owned by Cumulus Media, wit ...
and
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 ...
101.3
KDWB-FM
KDWB-FM (101.3 MHz) is an American commercial radio station broadcasting in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, licensed to suburban Richfield. KDWB's radio format is Top 40/CHR. Its transmitter is located in Shoreview, while its studios ...
were able to overtake it. One sign of the changing times: the well-known
farm
A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...
report was dropped in early 2004, reflecting the fact that many farmers began to rely more on the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
for such information and that the number of farmers in Minnesota has drastically shrunk since the station first began broadcasting (although agriculture remains vital to the region).
In August 2008, as a cosmetic change to make WCCO in sync with other CBS talk radio stations, the station changed from "News/Talk 8•3•0 WCCO" to "News Radio 8•3•0 WCCO." On September 15, 2011, WCCO was awarded the
NAB Marconi Radio Award :''"Marconi Award" links here. Note that in the Netherlands, the radio academy awards are also called Marconi Awards.''
The Marconi Radio Awards are presented annually by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to the top radio stations and ...
for Large Market Station of the Year.
Sports
WCCO became the radio home of
Minnesota Timberwolves
The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Timberwolves compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. Founded in 19 ...
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
team starting with the 2011–2012 season, acquiring the broadcast rights from rival
AM 1130
The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1130 kHz: 1130 AM is a clear-channel frequency shared by Canada and The United States. CKWX Vancouver, KWKH Shreveport and WBBR New York City
New York, ofte ...
KFAN. WCCO started broadcasting
University of St. Thomas St. Thomas University or University of St. Thomas may refer to:
*Saint Thomas Aquinas University, Colombia
*Saint Thomas Aquinas University of the North, Tucumán province, Argentina
*St. Thomas University (Canada), Fredericton, New Brunswick
*St. ...
football beginning in the 2011–2012 season. The St. Thomas football broadcasts would be caried on WCCO until the 2019-2020 season with no season in 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. With the move to Division I starting in the 2021 season, the football games would move to
KSTP. WCCO was the former home of
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
Golden Gophers
The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 25 (12 men's, 13 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and competes in the Big Te ...
athletics and
Minnesota Wild
The Minnesota Wild are a professional ice hockey team based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Wild competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference and play their home games at the Xcel Ener ...
hockey
Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...
. WCCO had been the radio
flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...
of the
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...
football team
A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...
from 1961 to 1969, 1976 to 1984, 1988 to 1990, and 1996 to 2000.
The
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...
had been heard on WCCO since arriving in the Twin Cities in 1961, but because of a dispute between WCCO parent company CBS and
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio (XM) was one of the three satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable television. Its s ...
over compensation for its Major League Baseball broadcasts, CBS did not renew many of its
MLB
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
contracts. The Twins would move to KSTP beginning in the 2007 season, and would then move to then-team owned
KTWN-FM prior to the start of the 2013 season. On November 17, 2017, WCCO announced that Twins broadcasts would return to the station beginning in the 2018 season.
Entercom ownership
On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio agreed to merge with
Entercom
Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...
. The sale was conducted using a
Reverse Morris Trust
A Reverse Morris Trust in United States law is a transaction that combines a divisive reorganization ( spin-off) with an acquisitive reorganization ( statutory merger) to allow a tax-free transfer (in the guise of a merger) of a subsidiary. It may ...
to shield the deal from taxes. While CBS shareholders retain a 72% ownership stake in the combined company, Entercom was the surviving entity, with WCCO Radio no longer being co-owned with WCCO-TV.
The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on the 17th.
In 2018, WCCO returned to the moniker "News/Talk 8•3•0 WCCO" with its
logo
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...
reflecting the change.
Past personalities
WCCO broadcasters were known across the
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
. Perhaps the greatest of them all was
Cedric Adams, who first was heard on WCCO in 1931, and broadcast on the station until his death in 1961. Pilots flying over the Upper Midwest reported watching the lights go out all over the region each night when Adams finished his 10 pm newscast. Howard Viken, Maynard Speece, Charlie Boone and Roger Erickson, Jergen Nash, Joyce Lamont, and Randy Merriman became household names. When broadcaster
Steve Cannon "the Iron Ranger" (who referred to WCCO as 'The evil neighbor') and his cast of characters arrived at WCCO from
AM 1500
The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1500 kHz: The Federal Communications Commission categorizes 1500 AM as a U.S. clear-channel frequency. WFED Washington, D.C. and KSTP St. Paul are the dominant Class A stations on 1500 ...
KSTP in 1971, he was still thought of by many as the "new guy" nearly until his retirement 26 years later.
For several years, WCCO has hosted a weekly radio show with the
governor of Minnesota
The governor of Minnesota is the head of government of the U.S. state of Minnesota, leading the state's executive branch. Forty people have been governor of Minnesota, though historically there were also three governors of Minnesota Territory. ...
. Former Governor
Jesse Ventura
Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, actor, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2 ...
had a show while in office, and successor
Tim Pawlenty
Timothy James Pawlenty (; born November 27, 1960) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the 39th governor of Minnesota from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, Pawlenty served in the Minnesota House o ...
followed suit.
Eleanor Mondale
Eleanor Jane Mondale Poling (January 19, 1960 – September 17, 2011) was an American radio personality, television host, and actress.
Biography
Mondale was the only daughter of Joan Mondale and former Vice President Walter Mondale. Her o ...
, the daughter of former Senator and Vice President
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...
, started her career in radio at the station in 1989 as the entertainment reporter, but left after 8 months. She returned to Minnesota in 2006 to co-host a weekday morning show on WCCO with Susie Jones.
More recent WCCO personalities have included longtime ''
Star Tribune
The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...
'' columnist
Sid Hartman
Sidney Hartman (March 15, 1920October 18, 2020) was an American sports journalist for the Minneapolis '' Star Tribune'' and the WCCO 830 AM radio station. For 20 years, he was also a panelist on the weekly television program ''Sports Show with ...
, "Whole-Lotta Woman" Ruth Koscielak and
Tim Russell
__NOTOC__
Tim Russell (born 1947) is an American radio announcer and voice actor ( AFTRA/ SAG) in Minneapolis – Saint Paul. He is most widely known as one of the actors on the long-running radio show, '' A Prairie Home Companion'', and contin ...
, who had been a cast member on
Garrison Keillor
Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (; born August 7, 1942) is an American author, singer, humorist, voice actor, and radio personality. He created the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) show ''A Prairie Home Companion'' (called ''Garrison Keillor's Radio ...
's ''
A Prairie Home Companion
''A Prairie Home Companion'' is a weekly radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor that aired live from 1974 to 2016. In 2016, musician Chris Thile took over as host, and the successor show was eventually renamed ''Live from He ...
'', heard on
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
for many years. Some notable sports broadcasters have included
Baseball Hall of Fame
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...
member
Herb Carneal
Charles Herbert Carneal (May 10, 1923 – April 1, 2007) was an American Major League Baseball sportscaster. From 1962 through 2006, he was a play-by-play voice of Minnesota Twins radio broadcasts, becoming the lead announcer in 1967 after Ra ...
, the longtime voice of the Minnesota Twins, Halsey Hall,
Ray Scott and Ray Christensen, longtime voice of University of Minnesota's Gopher football and Gopher men's basketball.
AM stereo history
After nearly a year of work to outfit the station and prepare programming in stereo, on October 2, 1985, WCCO began broadcasting in
AM stereo using the
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...
C-QUAM
C-QUAM (Compatible QUadrature Amplitude Modulation) is the method of AM stereo broadcasting used in Canada, the United States and most other countries. It was invented in 1977 by Norman Parker, Francis Hilbert, and Yoshio Sakaie, and published i ...
system. The move by the large market dominating WCCO to adopt AM stereo received attention from local and national news outlets. WCCO discontinued broadcasting in AM stereo around the turn of the millennium.
HD Radio
In 2005, WCCO began broadcasting its signal in the
HD Radio
HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...
format.
[https://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?id=16 HD Radio Guide for Minneapolis-St. Paul] WCCO programming is also
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...
on 102.9 KMNB-HD2. In March 2018, WCCO shut down its HD Radio signal on AM 830.
References
* (2001).
Radio and Television. A History of Minneapolis. Minneapolis Public Library. Accessed November 15, 2018.
City of Coon Rapids. Accessed September 25, 2004.
External links
FCC History Cards for WCCO*
*
Radiotapes.comHistoric airchecks of WCCO-AM and other Twin Cities radio stations dating back to 1924.
TwinCitiesRadioAirchecks.comAirchecks of Twin Cities stations from the 1960s and 1970s.
The First Forty - The Story of WCCO Radio 1924-1964
{{Authority control
Radio stations in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Peabody Award winners
News and talk radio stations in the United States
Radio stations established in 1922
1922 establishments in Minnesota
Audacy, Inc. radio stations
General Mills
Clear-channel radio stations
Radio stations licensed before 1923 and still broadcasting