WARF (1350 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Akron, Ohio, known as "Fox Sports 1350 The Gambler" and carrying a sports format. 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 ...

, WARF serves the Greater Cleveland and

Akron metro area The Akron, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area, sometimes referred to as Greater Akron, is defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget as an area consisting of two counties, Summit and Portage, in Northeast Ohio and anchored by t ...

s as an affiliate of

Fox Sports Radio Fox Sports Radio is an American sports radio network. Based in Los Angeles, California, the network is operated and managed by Premiere Networks in a content partnership with Fox Corporation's Fox Sports division and iHeartMedia, parent company ...

and

VSiN Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN) is an American sports betting radio network and streaming television channel. Founded in 2017 by the family of sportscaster Brent Musburger, VSIN broadcasts from their studios at the South Point Casino o ...

. The station also carries play-by-play of the Cleveland Monsters and Cleveland State Vikings men's basketball. Originally WADC, this station is the oldest surviving radio station in Akron, founded and owned by Allen T. Simmons. A charter affiliate of the CBS Radio Network, WADC was a key station in the network up to the early 1960s. Becoming WSLR in 1965, the station became one of the earliest country music stations in the region, and remained as such until switching to urban contemporary as WTOU in 1994. WTOU retained their call sign after becoming an

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternately platform-agnostically branded as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN". ...

affiliate in 1999 and a

affiliate in 2001, but changed to the current WARF calls in 2005 during a two-year stretch as progressive talk. Having returned to a sports format in 2007, and resuming its Fox Sports affiliation in 2009, WARF was reoriented to the Cleveland media market in 2020 with the addition of

sports betting-related programming. WARF's studios are located in

Independence, Ohio Independence is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. It is a suburb of Cleveland. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,133. Independence was originally called Center and was renamed in 1830. Geography Independence is located at . Ac ...

,Fox Sports 1350 rebranded as "The Gambler" - Cleveland.com
( Plain Dealer) while the station transmitter resides in

Cuyahoga Falls Cuyahoga Falls ( or ) is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 51,114. The second-largest city in Summit County, it is located directly north of Akron and is a suburb of the Akron metropol ...

. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WARF broadcasts a digital signal through 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 ...

in-band on-channel In-band on-channel (IBOC) is a hybrid method of transmitting digital radio and analog radio broadcast signals simultaneously on the same frequency. The name refers to the new digital signals being broadcast in the same AM or FM band (in-band), a ...

standard, and streams online via

iHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast and radio streaming Computing platform, platform owned by iHeartMedia. It was founded in August 2008. , iHeartRadio was functioning as the national umbr ...

History

Beginnings

The Akron Automobile Association established a temporary station named WADC for a February 1925

auto show An auto show, also known as a motor show or car show, is a public exhibition of current automobile models, debuts, concept cars, or out-of-production classics. It is attended by automotive industry representatives, dealers, auto journalists a ...

at the Central Garage, with a transmitter built by the Willard Storage Battery Co. of Cleveland. W. F. Jones, head of the show's sponsor, the Automobile Dealers' Company, insisted for the station's establishment to help broadcast the show's events to a larger audience. After the show ended, Jones tried to get a permanent station launched; failing to find enough investor support, Allen T. Simmons—owner of the Allen Theater—obtained a permanent license which was granted on March 23, 1925. W. F. Jones would eventually purchase Cleveland station WDBK in July 1927 and moved it to Akron as WFJC, only to have it moved back to Cleveland in 1930 as WGAR (AM) via a two-station consolidation. A slogan — "Watch Akron Develop Commerce" — matching the call letters was adopted, which was soon slightly modified to "Watch Akron Develop Commercially". (Allen's 1965 obituary stated that the station's slogan was "Watch Akron Deliver Cars", although an ''Akron Beacon'' columnist later noted that "Several readers... reported that it actually meant 'Watch Akron Develop Commercially'".) WADC was the second radio station in Akron (after WOE which went on the air on April 27, 1922, but was off the air in July 1923). Regular broadcasts began on April 8, 1925, from studios in the Portage Hotel. The station originally broadcast at 1160 kHz with 100 watts, but its signal increased to 500 watts by 1926. WADC was a charter member 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 ...

Network, being one of the 16 stations that aired the first CBS network program on September 18, 1927. The station soon opened new studios in Tallmadge and increased its power to 5,000 watts. Its frequency jumped around from 1160 to 1010 to 1260, and to 1320 after the FRC's General Order 40 went into effect on November 11, 1928. On March 29, 1941, it moved to 1350 kHz as part of the NARBA frequency shifts. As the CBS affiliate during the 1930s and 1940s, WADC was the leading Akron radio station, rivaled later only by WAKR after it took to the air in 1940. Akron had no NBC Red affiliate, since WTAM's signal from Cleveland covered the area. WADC's success was symbolized by the two-story art-deco WADC Building, which was completed on May 6, 1949, and became a local landmark on the southeast corner of Main and Mill Streets in downtown Akron. The entire second floor of the building was occupied by the station's studios and offices.

"Whistler" 1350

175px, Logo used during the "Whistler 1350" era WADC was sold in late 1964 to Welcome Radio, Inc. headed by Cleveland lawyer Harrison Fuerst. In January 1965, the station became WSLR, known as "Whistler 1350". It brought a country music format to the area, with morning host Jaybird Drennan. Jaybird died on December 10, 2006. On August 22, 1984, Welcome Radio sold WSLR to OBC Broadcasting, Inc., headed by Richard A. Nicoletti. Faced with competition from WQMX in Akron, along with WGAR-FM in Cleveland and

WQXK WQXK (105.1 MHz, "K-105") is a commercial FM radio station, licensed to Salem, Ohio, and serving the Youngstown metropolitan area and the Mahoning Valley. It is one of eight radio stations in the Youngstown radio market owned by Cumulus Media ...

Youngstown Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, which ...

, WSLR dropped its country format.

Post "Whistler"

On September 1, 1994, the station adopted an urban contemporary format delivered by ABC Radio called " The Touch", and it switched to call letters WTOU on September 29. In October 1999, the station switched to a sports talk format. It first carried programming from

and kept the WTOU calls but dropped "The Touch" nickname and instead went by "1350AM ESPN - Akron's Sports Network." WTOU and sister station were sold by OBC Broadcasting to Clear Channel Communications (now

) on August 15, 2000. In September 2001, months after the sale to Clear Channel, WTOU then flipped to

, branded as "Fox Sports 1350". The networks' offerings at the time also included Tony Bruno and "Kiley & Booms," co-hosted by Cleveland Heights native Chuck Booms (who broadcast on his end from Clear Channel's Cleveland facilities in

). WTOU also became the Akron-Canton affiliate for '' The Jim Rome Show'', and became the home station for the Akron Aeros for the 2002 season. 175px, WARF logo from 2005 to 2007, used during its time as a progressive talk station.
The former "Radio Free" slogan is the origin of the station's call letters. The sports talk format was dropped on June 2, 2005, and the station switched to a liberal talk radio format (albeit with no Air America programming at first), changing its call letters to WARF. Branded as "Radio Free Ohio", WARF carried Al Franken and Randi Rhodes from Air America Radio, and Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller from Jones Radio. WARF also held the distinction of being the only station in the country to carry

Bill Press William H. Press (born April 8, 1940) is an American talk radio host, podcaster, liberal pundit and author. He was chairman of the California Democratic Party from 1993 to 1996, and is a senior political contributor on CNN. He hosts ''The Bill ...

's radio show when it debuted on June 27, 2005, until

KRXA KRXA (540 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Spanish language Catholic radio format. Licensed to Carmel Valley, California, the station serves the Salinas - Monterey - Santa Cruz areas of Central California. It is owned by El Sembrador M ...

picked up the show on August 22. On February 13, 2006, veteran radio personality Joe Finan (long heard on rival talk station WNIR) began a locally produced talk show 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. weekdays. Finan was released from WARF that October 27, and died that December 20. WARF changed back to a sports format on March 30, 2007; branded as "Sportsradio 1350", becoming an affiliate for Sporting News Radio. Its logo used a blue-and-gold color scheme, a nod to the University of Akron. In June 2009, WARF switched back to

, which it airs to this day.

Shifting focus to Cleveland

On January 27, 2020, WARF rebranded as "Fox Sports 1350 The Gambler", as it added programming from the Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN) related to sports betting. The accompanying press release also formally repositioned WARF as a Cleveland market station, billing itself as ''Cleveland's Fox Sports 1350'', though the station's city of license assignment to Akron and transmitter site in

remained unchanged.

Current programming

Regular schedule

programming airs the bulk of the day (both during the week and on weekends - including the morning drive show featuring former Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn) with programming from

also featured (early evenings and the weekend morning show with former Browns general manager Mike Lombardi).

Play by play

WARF is also the radio home of the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League (AHL),Monsters announce multi-year-extension of radio broadcast agreement - Cleveland Monsters.com
/ref> and the flagship station for Cleveland State Vikings men's basketball.CSU teams up with iHeart Media - WTAM.com
/ref> Any Vikings games that conflict with the Monsters slide over to sister station WTAM 1100 AM/106.9 FM.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1925 establishments in Ohio IHeartMedia radio stations Radio stations established in 1925 ARF Sports radio stations in the United States Fox Sports Radio stations