WWTC (1280
AM, "The Patriot") 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 ...
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 ...
licensed
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
to
Minneapolis
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 ...
,
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 serving the
Twin Cities
Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...
region. It is owned by
Salem Media Group
Salem Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: SALM; formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an American radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher formerly based in Camarillo, California (moved most operations to Ir ...
and broadcasts a
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
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 ...
.
By day, WWTC transmits with 10,000
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. At night, the power is increased to 15,000 watts. WWTC has a
directional signal using a four-
tower array
A tower array is an arrangement of multiple radio towers which are mast radiators in a phased array. They were originally developed as ground-based tracking radars. Tower arrays can consist of free-standing or guyed towers or a mix of them. Tower a ...
. 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 ...
and
radio studio
A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enoug ...
s are on Cliff Road near
Minnesota State Highway 77
Minnesota State Highway 77 (MN 77) is a highway in Minnesota, which runs from its intersection with 138th Street (north of Dakota County Road 42) in Apple Valley and continues north to its northern terminus at its interchange with Stat ...
in
Eagan Eagan may refer to:
People
* Daisy Eagan (born 1979), American actress
* Dennis Eagan (1926–2012), British field hockey player
* Eddie Eagan (1897–1967), American sportsman
* James Eagan (1926-2000), American politician from Missouri
* John J. ...
. Programming is also heard on 250-watt
FM translator
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
K298CO at 107.5
MHz
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 one he ...
.
Programming
On weekdays, WWTC carries
nationally syndicated conservative talk
Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and other countries devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio. The definition of conservative talk is generally broad enough ...
shows, largely from the co-owned
Salem Radio Network
Salem Radio Network is a United States-based radio network that specializes in syndicated Christian political talk, music, and conservative secular news/talk programming. It is a division of the Salem Media Group.
Network information
Salem Ra ...
. They include
Hugh Hewitt
Hugh Hewitt (born February 22, 1956) is an American radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network and an attorney, academic, and author. A conservative, he writes about law, society, politics, and media bias in the United States. Hewitt is ...
,
Mike Gallagher,
Dennis Prager
Dennis Mark Prager (; born August 2, 1948) is an American conservative radio talk show host and writer. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show ''The Dennis Prager Show''. In 2009, he co-founded PragerU, which creates five-m ...
,
Sebastian Gorka
Sebastian Lukács Gorka ( hu, Gorka Sebestyén Lukács) (born October 22, 1970) is a British-born Hungarian-American media personality (currently with Salem Radio and NewsMax TV), military and intelligence analyst, and former government offi ...
,
Larry Elder
Laurence Allen Elder (born April 27, 1952) is an American right-wing political commentator and conservative talk radio host. Elder hosts ''The Larry Elder Show'', based in California. The show began as a local program on Los Angeles radio stat ...
,
Charlie Kirk and
Eric Metaxas
Eric Metaxas (born 1963) is an American author, speaker, and conservative radio host. He has written three biographies, ''Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery'' about William Wilberforce (2007), ''Bonhoeffer: P ...
. One program is produced by
Westwood One
Westwood One is an American radio network
There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass-media entertainment, and ...
, "
The Mark Levin Show
''The Mark Levin Show'' is a conservative talk radio show hosted by Mark Levin. The program is broadcast nationwide on Westwood One and reaches an estimated seven million weekly listeners, according to an estimate from ''Talkers Magazine''. The ...
."
On weekends, shows on money, health, real estate, movies, the military and aviation are heard, as well as repeats of weekday shows. Some weekend hours are paid
brokered programming
Brokered programming (also known as time-buy and blocktime) is a form of broadcast content in which the show's producer pays a radio or television station for air time, rather than exchanging programming for pay or the opportunity to play spot comm ...
. Most hours begin with news from
Townhall News.
History
WRHM and WTCN
WWTC is one of the oldest radio stations in the Twin Cities. On , it
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 ...
as WRHM (for "Rosedale Hospital") at 4429 Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. It shared time for a few months with
WDGY
WDGY (740 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Hudson, Wisconsin, and serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul radio market. It is owned by WRPX, inc. and airs a Classic Hits/Oldies radio format. The station's studios and offices are ...
at both 1140 AM and 1150 AM.
Also that year, the transmitter was moved from the hospital to Fridley. In 1929, WRHM became a
network affiliate
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 a ...
of the
CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
. It switched to
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
's
Blue Network
The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American Commercial broadcasting, radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945.
Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the N ...
on January 1, 1937. The Rosedale Hospital Company sold the station to the Minnesota Broadcasting Company in 1930.
The studio relocated from the hospital to the ne
Wesley Temple Buildingat 115 East Grant Street in Minneapolis. WRHM was purchased in September 1934 by Twin Cities Newspapers, a partnership between the
St. Paul Pioneer Press and the
Minneapolis 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 ...
, and 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 ...
was changed to WTCN at that time. The station remained an NBC Blue Network affiliate through the network's selloff, becoming an
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
affiliate in 1945 when NBC Blue formally became ABC. The station kept the ABC affiliation until December 31, 1962.
WTCN began broadcasting fro
a new transmitter and tower in Rosevilleat the intersection of North Snelling Avenue and Minnesota Highway 36 during 1935, a site that was used until 1962 when the station's transmission facilities were moved to the other side of the expanding Twin Cities metro in St. Louis Park, at a point south of what is now Interstate 394 and west of Minnesota Highway 100, using four towers. WTCN moved from 1250 AM to 1280 AM in March 1941 as required by 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) under which most American, Canadian and Mexican AM radio stations changed frequencies.
Forays into FM
The station had an experimental
FM transmitter by 1939. W9XTC at 26.05 MHz operated for several years, but by 1944, was only being activated intermittently. Local stations
KSTP and
WCCO also experimented with FM broadcasts around this time.
Once the modern FM band was established, WTCN attempted again to broadcast on
WTCN-FM 97.1 from 1947 to 1954. However, few people owned FM receivers in that era and the FM license was surrendered in 1954.
Expansion into television
On July 1, 1949, Twin Cities Newspapers expanded to television broadcasting with the launch of
WTCN-TV on channel 4, becoming the second modern television station in the state after
KSTP-TV
KSTP-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, serving the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities area as an affiliate of American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is the Flagship (broadcasting), flagsh ...
launched a year earlier. The original studios were in the Radio City Theater building at 9th Street and LaSalle Avenue. WTCN followed its TV sister to Radio City in September 1949. WTCN-FM also moved to the Radio City location around the same time. However, WTCN-TV channel 4 was short-lived.
Twin Cities Newspapers decided to sell WTCN-AM-FM and purchase a majority share of WCCO Radio from
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 Entertainm ...
three years later. The TV station's call letters were changed to match the newly acquired radio station on August 17, 1952. A new company,
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 ...
, was formed as a holding company for the WCCO stations; it was later spun off to the Murphy and McNally families. WCCO-TV is currently owned by CBS directly. This TV station has always had a primary CBS affiliation, an affiliation that has remained consistent to this day (although it aired ABC programming as a secondary affiliation in its early years). WCCO-TV remained at the 9th Street location until 1983, when it moved to Nicollet Mall at 11th Street.
WTCN was at the same time sold to the Minnesota Television Service Corporation headed by St. Paul businessman Robert Butler, a former ambassador to Cuba and Australia. The company quickly applied for a new license for channel 11, but had to negotiate for the frequency with the owner of
WMIN
WMIN (1010 AM, "Uptown 1010") is a radio station licensed to serve Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, United States. The station is part of the Tri-County Broadcasting group and the broadcast license is held by the Herbert M. Hoppe Revocable Trust.
Prog ...
1400 AM
The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1400 kHz. 1400 kHz is defined as a Class C (local) frequency in the coterminous United States and such stations on this frequency are limited to 1,000 watts. U.S. stations outside t ...
, which also applied for the channel. The two stations, WTCN and WMIN, arranged to share the channel, alternating every two hours. This became the area's third TV station on September 1, 1953, and the WTCN-TV call sign remained with it until 1985 when it became known as WUSA. Channel 11 was merged and sold to the H.M. Bitner Group in 1955, and eventually was owned by
Metromedia
Metromedia (also often MetroMedia) was an American media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and controlled Orion Pictures from 1988 to 1997. Metromedia was established in 1956 after the DuMo ...
for many years.
Tegna, Inc.
Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into t ...
is the current licensee of
KARE
Kare or KARE may refer to:
* Kare (Žitorađa), a village in Serbia
* Kare language, several languages with the name
* Kare (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
* Kare Kauks (born 1961), Estonian singer
* Kåre or Kaare, ...
.
This second incarnation of WTCN-TV was ABC's first full-time television network affiliate in the Twin Cities, but in April 1961, it lost ABC affiliation to then-independent
KMSP (now a
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
owned and operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
). For the next 18 years, channel 11 operated without a network affiliation as an
independent TV outlet until it picked up the
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
affiliation in March 1979 during a market-wide affiliate switch. Prior to the TV station's current studio location in Golden Valley, its original studios were in the
Calhoun Beach Hotel on Lake Street at Dean Boulevard, where the radio station had moved in 1952 following a three-year occupancy downtown with its former TV sister, WTCN-TV (channel 4).
WTCN Radio and TV were sold to Time-Life Broadcast in 1957, and in 1964, the siblings were separated with the TV going to Chris-Craft Industries (which would later own KMSP) while the radio stations were purchased by Buckley-Jaeger. The call letters were changed to WWTC-AM-FM on October 1. This change was made due to an FCC rule in place at the time that prohibited stations in the same market, but with different ownership, from having the same fundamental call signs. In early 1965, the radio station relocated to downtown Minneapolis in the Builders Exchange Building at 609 2nd Avenue South, to studios formerly occupied by WDGY. In 1970, WWTC began broadcasting 24 hours a day and played soft popular music.
"Golden Rock"
Over the years, WWTC had a number of formats, including the distinction of being the Twin Cities' first
all-news radio
All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to the discussion and broadcast of news.
All-news radio is available in both local and syndicated forms, and is carried on both major US satellite radio networks. All-news stations can run the ...
station (using NBC's News and Information Service), beginning in June 1975. In 1979, WWTC switched to 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 ...
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 ...
format called the "Splendid Blend", which evolved to an
oldies
Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as we ...
format known as the "Golden Rock." The oldies sound achieved the station's highest ratings in years. With a number of quirky
DJs such as "Ugly Del" Roberts, Mick "King Kracker" Wagner, and Steve "Boogie" Bowman, the station managed to win an audience.
In 1981, WWTC relocated seven blocks south, back to the Wesley Temple Building on East Grant Street, where it occupied the entire top floor until 1988.
Various format changes, then a return to oldies
The "Golden Rock" format fizzled after a few years, and the station went through a long string of format changes. In November 1984, WWTC adopted a unique locally oriented
urban contemporary
Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contem ...
/
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
hybrid format that was called "Metro Music." "Metro Music" ended in September 1985 and, following a month of top-40/Adult Contemporary music, an "all-weather" format made its debut. The automated format was unsuccessful for a few reasons, one of which was WCCO Radio's news/weather dominance, especially during extreme conditions. And WWTC's weather format was sometimes heard playing inaccurate information, such as the day's forecast for sunny weather while a storm was overtaking the area. "Weather Radio 1280" was blown out after 10 months.
"Sunny 1280" was next, a 16-month run as
adult standards using new call letters, KSNE (effective June 20, 1986). In November 1987, the station became known as "The Breeze," taking a satellite feed of an early and more diverse form of what is now known as "
Smooth Jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s.
History
Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...
" from a service run by the former owner of
KTWN 108. On May 27, 1988, the station switched back to the legacy WWTC call letters and a second run with the 'Golden Rock' format. During this period, it operated from 215 South 11th Street, in a building in which
WCCO-FM
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 ...
(now KMNB) was located for many years.
Children's Broadcasting and Radio AAHS
WWTC was sold by the Short family to Christopher Dahl in 1990, and launched in May as the flagship of ''
Radio AAHS
Radio AAHS was a radio network managed by the Children's Broadcasting Corporation.
Its flagship station was WWTC (1280 AM) in Minneapolis, which broadcast from the former First Federal Bank building at Minnesota State Highway 100 and Excelsior ...
'', a new radio network which primarily aired
children's music
Children's music or kids' music is music composed and performed for children. In European-influenced contexts this means music, usually songs, written specifically for a juvenile audience. The composers are usually adults. Children's music has hi ...
. The station moved its studios to a former bank at Excelsior Boulevard and Minnesota Highway 100 in St. Louis Park. In 1994, WWTC's new parent company under Dahl's ownership, Children's Broadcasting Corporation, would acquire religious station
KYCR. While the station would move into WWTC's facility, it maintained its religious format. While Radio AAHS would bring some success to WWTC, it would soon face competition from
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
despite being a marketing partner for Radio AAHS, Disney would launch its own competing network,
Radio Disney
Radio Disney was an American radio network operated by the Disney Radio Networks unit of Disney Branded Television within the Disney General Entertainment Content, headquartered in Burbank, California.
The network broadcast music programming ...
, on November 18, 1996. ABC-owned station
KQRS would be Radio Disney's Minnesota affiliate.
Finding it difficult to compete with Radio Disney, Dahl sued Disney for breaching its agreement with the network, and the Radio AAHS network was shut down in January 1998. In 2002, the former Children's Broadcasting owners (who now operate Intelefilm) won their court case against Disney and were awarded $9.5 million. Payments totaling $12.4 million, including $2.6 million in interest, were finally made in 2004.
Following the demise of Radio AAHS, Children's Broadcasting enlisted longtime area programmer, DJ and unlicensed broadcaster Alan Freed to provide interim programming every night for its 10 stations until the stations could be sold. WWTC played random music and syndicated programs during the day. Freed, in addition to having worked at WWTC twice before during its "Golden Rock" and "Metro Music" periods, had set up a
pirate radio
Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license.
In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are received—especially w ...
station in downtown
Minneapolis
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 ...
in 1996, broadcasting
electronic dance music from his apartment on 97.7 FM.
Beat Radio
Beat Radio originally was an unlicensed radio station in Minneapolis, Minnesota that played dance music. Founded by local radio DJ and programmer, Alan Freed, in 1996, the station served downtown Minneapolis and surrounding neighborhoods and reac ...
gained a positive response from the public, but was shut down by the FCC after operating at 20 watts for a few months. "Beat Radio" aired across Children's Broadcasting's stations beginning in February 1998 between the shutdown of Radio AAHS and the sale of the CBC stations in late October 1998 to a company planning to run a syndicated service called "Catholic Family Radio." When CFR went bankrupt in 2000, that company sold its stations, including WWTC and sister KYCR, to
Salem Communications
Salem Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: SALM; formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an American radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher formerly based in Camarillo, California (moved most operations to Ir ...
.
"The Patriot"
Following the purchase by Salem, WWTC began simulcasting new sister station
KKMS, until its new co-located studios in
Eagan Eagan may refer to:
People
* Daisy Eagan (born 1979), American actress
* Dennis Eagan (1926–2012), British field hockey player
* Eddie Eagan (1897–1967), American sportsman
* James Eagan (1926-2000), American politician from Missouri
* John J. ...
were ready. On March 19, 2001, Salem branded WWTC as "The Patriot" with a
talk
Talk may refer to:
Communication
* Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people
* Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people
* Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct
...
format, broadcasting Salem's national stable of conservative hosts, including
Dennis Prager
Dennis Mark Prager (; born August 2, 1948) is an American conservative radio talk show host and writer. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show ''The Dennis Prager Show''. In 2009, he co-founded PragerU, which creates five-m ...
,
Hugh Hewitt
Hugh Hewitt (born February 22, 1956) is an American radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network and an attorney, academic, and author. A conservative, he writes about law, society, politics, and media bias in the United States. Hewitt is ...
,
Red, White, and Green.
''City Pages'' by Mike Mosedale. Retrieved January 18, 2004; verified February 7, 2017. Larry Elder
Laurence Allen Elder (born April 27, 1952) is an American right-wing political commentator and conservative talk radio host. Elder hosts ''The Larry Elder Show'', based in California. The show began as a local program on Los Angeles radio stat ...
, Sebastian Gorka
Sebastian Lukács Gorka ( hu, Gorka Sebestyén Lukács) (born October 22, 1970) is a British-born Hungarian-American media personality (currently with Salem Radio and NewsMax TV), military and intelligence analyst, and former government offi ...
, Mark Levin
Mark Reed Levin (; born September 21, 1957) is an American lawyer, author, and radio personality. He is the host of syndicated radio show
Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and rad ...
, and Eric Metaxas
Eric Metaxas (born 1963) is an American author, speaker, and conservative radio host. He has written three biographies, ''Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery'' about William Wilberforce (2007), ''Bonhoeffer: P ...
. The Patriot's locally-focused programs include the long-running Northern Alliance Radio Network, which airs on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and focuses on Minnesota news and related politics.
Salem also ran "The Patriot II" on sister station KYCR in Golden Valley. KYCR's program schedule was initially almost the same as WWTC, with the addition of Bill O'Reilly's midday show, and mostly aired repeats of shows already on WWTC. In 2007, KYCR changed to a separate talk format as "AM 1570: The New Talk of the Twin Cities", and would later shift to a business news format as "Business 1570, Twin Cities Business Radio." In December 2015, KYCR flipped to a health-oriented talk format known as "Wellness Radio 1570". KYCR swapped call letters with KDIZ the same year, with KYCR taking on the business news and talk format.
Books
Area author Jeff Lonto wrote a book about the station in 1998, "Fiasco At 1280" (), which covered many of the station's missteps during the 1980s. The book was published just before the demise of "Radio Aahs," so it doesn't include that part of the station's story.
References
St. Louis Park Historical Society
Twin Cities radio history
External links
FCC History Cards for WWTC
AM 1280: The Patriot
*
*
Airchecks of WWTC radio formats dating back to 1972 including All News Radio, The Golden Rock, Metro Radio, Weather Radio, Radio Aahs and more. In addition, the site has photos of the Wesley Temple Building and studio, an article about the mid-1970s news format, and other documents and history
TwinCitiesRadioAirchecks.com
includes some 1970s airchecks of WWTC
Minnesota Historical Society photos of WTCN
1938 QSL card
from Radiotapes.com
1946 newspaper ad
from Radiotapes.com
King Koil Mattress billboard with WTCN Radio plug, 1946-49
from the Hennepin County Library
WTCN Radio transmitter site & tower, 1947
from the Minnesota Historical Society
WTCN billboard, 1948
from the Minnesota Digital Library
WTCN TV & Radio billboard, 1949
from the Minnesota Historical Society
WTCN TV & Radio billboard, 1950
from the Minnesota Historical Society
Beat Radio
Studio Z-7 Publishing: Fiasco At 1280
Direct streaming link
Sources
{{coord, 44, 57, 41, N, 93, 21, 24, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title
Radio stations established in 1925
Talk radio stations in the United States
Radio stations in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Conservative talk radio
1925 establishments in Minnesota
Salem Media Group properties