WGAN (560 AM) is an commercial radio station licensed to Portland, Maine. The station is owned by Saga Communications and it airs a news/talk radio format. The station calls itself "WGAN Newsradio 98.5 FM and AM 560." The

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 on Western Avenue in South Portland, Maine. The station is also heard on a 250- watt FM translator, 98.5 W253DA, which allows listeners who prefer FM radio to hear WGAN in Portland and its close suburbs. In addition, WGAN is heard on the HD2 channel of co-owned 93.1

WMGX WMGX (93.1 MHz "Coast 93.1") is a commercial FM radio station in Portland, Maine. The station's coverage area reaches across most of Southern Maine and into portions of Southeastern New Hampshire. WMGX airs an Adult Top 40 radio format and is o ...

. AM 560 broadcasts with 5,000 watts around the clock, covering much of

Southern Maine Southern Maine Coast is a region of the U.S. state of Maine. It commonly includes the coastal areas of York County and Cumberland County. Some notable towns are Biddeford, Kittery, York, Wells, Ogunquit, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Saco, Old Or ...

and along the Maine Coast up to

Rockland Rockland may refer to: People *Per Bergsland, nicknamed Peter Rockland, one of three successful escapees from Stalag Luft III (the "Great Escape") Places ;In Canada *Rockland, Greater Victoria *Rockland, Nova Scotia *Rockland, Ontario ;In the Uni ...

. The transmitter is near the Maine Turnpike off Warren Avenue in Portland. WGAN is Maine's primary entry point station for the Emergency Alert System.

Programming

WGAN begins each weekday with a local news and interview show, hosted by

Matthew Gagnon Matthew Owen Gagnon (born December 10, 1980) is an American think tank executive, political strategist and writer from Maine. He is the chief executive officer of the Maine Policy Institute, a free market think tank based in Portland, Maine. He p ...

. The rest of the weekday schedule is made up of

nationally syndicated Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States wher ...

conservative talk shows from Hugh Hewitt, Grace Curley, Boston-based

Howie Carr Howard Louis Carr Jr. (born January 17, 1952) is an American conservative radio talk-show host, political author, news reporter and award-winning writer. He hosts ''The Howie Carr Show'' originating from his studios in Wellesley, MA and broadca ...

, Mark Levin, '' CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor'', '' Red Eye Radio'' and '' This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal''. On weekends, there are shows on money, real estate, technology and gardening. Weekend hosts include Larry Kudlow, Lars Larson, Sebastian Gorka and '' Rich DeMuro on Tech''. Most hours begin with world and national news from CBS Radio News, followed by Maine news with local reporters.

History

The station was founded in 1938 by

Guy Gannett Publishing Guy Gannett Communications was a family-owned business consisting of newspapers in Maine and a handful of television stations in the eastern United States. The company was founded by its namesake, Guy P. Gannett, in 1921, and was managed by a fa ...

, which was then the owner of the '' Portland Press Herald'' newspaper. It was Portland's second radio station after 970 WCSH (now co-owned WZAN) which

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 ...

in 1925. WGAN had its studios in the Columbia Hotel and originally broadcast on 640 kilocycles at 500 watts. It was a daytimer, required to go off the air at sunset in Los Angeles, because it shared

AM 640 640 AM - The following radio broadcasting, radio stations broadcast on AM broadcasting, AM frequency 640 Hertz, kHz: 640 AM is a North American clear-channel frequency. KFI in Los Angeles, California, KYUK (AM), KYUK in Bethel, Alaska, and CBN (AM) ...

with Class I-A KFI, the dominant clear channel station. WGAN was a CBS Network affiliate, carrying its schedule of dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and big band 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 ...

." After the enactment of the

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 ...

(NARBA) in 1941, WGAN moved to 560 kHz. It got a power boost to 5,000 watts and could broadcast around the clock. In 1954, WGAN gained a companion television station, WGAN-TV 13, and in 1967, a co-owned FM station, 102.9 WGAN-FM (now WBLM). When network programming moved from radio to television, WGAN began airing a

full service Full service or Full Service may refer to: * Full-service radio, a wide range of programming * Full Service Network, a communications company Entertainment * "Full Service", a song by the New Kids on the Block from their album ''The Block'' * F ...

, middle of the road format of popular music, news and sports. Until the early 1980s, Gannett's Portland operations owned the major daily newspaper, the CBS television station, 102.9 WGAN-FM and 560 WGAN, two of the city's top radio stations. Channel 13 was later renamed

WGME WGME-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Portland, Maine, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Waterville-licensed Fox affiliate WPFO (channel 23) under a loca ...

when WGAN-AM-FM were sold to Taylor Communications in 1983. In 1987, WGAN was sold by Taylor to Saga Communications, its present owner. Saga increased the talk programming and decreased the music shows, eventually evolving WGAN to a full time talk format. On May 27, 2014, WGAN began simulcasting on FM translator W288CU 105.5 FM, via

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

's HD2 subchannel. On August 22, 2019, WGAN also began simulcasting on FM translator W253DA 98.5 FM.WGAN Moves FM Signal to 98.5
Radioinsight - August 23, 2019 98.5 became WGAN's only translator, with the 105.5 translator switching to an oldies format in the fall. In March 2020, morning co-host Ken Altshuler was fired, followed in April with weekend morning host John McDonald's termination. Altshuler had been with WGAN for 18 years, and McDonald for 25.

Translator

References

External links

* * {{Saga Communications News and talk radio stations in the United States

GAN The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to: Places *Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden" China * Gan River (Jiangxi) * Gan River (Inner Mongolia), * Gan County, in Jiangxi province * Gansu, abbreviated ''Gā ...

Radio stations established in 1938 1938 establishments in Maine