metro detroit 1 daytime 2 nighttime branding newsradio 950 wwj slogan all news . all the time . frequency 950 khz also on hd radio 97.1 fm hd2 wxyt fm first air date august 20 1920 format news power 50 000 watts class b regional facility id 9621 transmitter coordinates 42 01 9 n 83 14 23 w 42.01917 n 83.23972 w 42.01917 ; 83.23972 callsign meaning none . assigned after requesting a call that could be easily understood . 1 2 former callsigns 8mk 1920 1921 wbl 1921 1922 affiliations cbs radio news michigan img sports network flagship owner cbs radio cbs radio east inc. sister stations wwj tv wkbd tv wdzh womc wxyt wxyt fm wycd webcast listen live website detroit.cbslocal.com wwj 950 am a regional broadcast frequency 3 is an all news radio station located in detroit michigan . owned by the cbs radio subsidiary of cbs corporation wwj s studios are in the panasonic building in southfield and its transmitter is located near newport . wwj traces its founding to daily broadcasts begun on august 20 1920 initially operating under an amateur radio license with the call sign 8mk making august 20 2016 the beginning of its 97th year of broadcasting . historically the station has claimed to be america s pioneer broadcasting station 4 and where commercial radio broadcasting began . 5 contents 1 programming 1.1 notable current on air staff 2 history 2.1 early years 2.2 1930s and 1940s 2.3 adoption of news and talk format 2.4 wwj am transmitter relocation and signal upgrade 2.5 notable former on air staff 3 pioneer station status 4 see also 5 references 6 external links programming edit wwj s regular programming is news and weather . it is michigan s only commercial all news radio station despite the fact that co owned wwj tv channel 62 is the sole cbs owned and operated television station without a local news presence . 6 wwj s main radio competition especially in flint and ann arbor is the non commercial michigan radio network . wwj is the flagship station for michigan wolverines football . 7 in cases where there are schedule conflicts it also carries sports events normally broadcast by sister stations example detroit tigers baseball games carried when 97.1 the ticket is broadcasting the detroit red wings hockey playoffs . wwj has reduced the use of its main slogan all news all the time due to its occasional inclusion of sporting events . the station also uses the slogans live local and committed to detroit and if it is happening in detroit across michigan or around the world you will hear it here on newsradio 950 wwj . wwj provides traffic and weather together on the 8s featuring traffic reports and weather forecasts in ten minute intervals beginning at 08 minutes past the hour with traffic coverage provided by detroit traffic reporters and forecasts by accuweather . in march 2005 wwj began streaming its programming over the internet ; in august 2005 the station began offering podcasts of newsmakers interviews and some of the station s feature programming . in august 2006 wwj began to also broadcast in the hd radio format . 8 anchors heard on wwj on weekdays include roberta jasina and tom jordan mornings jackie paige middays and greg bowman and jane bauer at afternoon drive . wwj produces several feature programs heard during the day including the automotive minute with jeff gilbert and eye on health with dr. deanna lites . wwj broadcasts fulltime with 50 000 watts using a five tower directional antenna system during daytime hours and its entire six tower array at night . wwj has the highest field strength 7 980 mv m at a distance of 1 km in a single direction nighttime pattern of any u.s. am station . 9 with this powerful signal primarily sent due north the station can be heard in parts of northern michigan during nighttime hours including the upper peninsula and mackinac areas plus much of southern lower michigan during the day . the northeastern reaches of metro detroit receive only a fair signal for the protection of a station in barrie ontario canada even though the station there shut down its am transmitter years earlier . notable current on air staff edit dr. joe sobel meteorologist history edit in her 1960 comprehensive review of the station s history cynthia boyes young cautioned that the actual beginnings of the detroit news radio station later to be known as wwj were not recorded at the time and the story can only be partially pieced together from the reminiscences of radio pioneers . 10 early years edit wwj debuted as the detroit news radiophone on august 20 1920 . its establishment was the outgrowth of interest in radio technology by the publishers of the detroit news combined with inventor lee de forest s longtime promotion of radio broadcasting . in the first decade of the 20th century james e. scripps the founder of the news supported radio research conducted by thomas e. clark and the april 4 1906 issue of the paper publicized the receipt by the advertising department of an order via radiotelegraphy from the clark equipped steamer city of detroit . 11 clark s company soon failed however the newspaper continued to monitor developments and in its december 13 1919 issue heralded a broadcast of phonograph records by the u.s. navy station in chicago 12 as a great miracle . 13 meanwhile the development of radio transmitters capable of audio transmissions led to lee de forest advocating the establishment of broadcasting stations especially by newspapers . to publicize this idea in late 1916 the deforest radio telephone & telegraph company began broadcasting a nightly wireless newspaper entertainment and news program from its experimental station 2xg located in the highbridge section of new york city . 14 however de forest was unsuccessful in interesting any publishers at this time moreover with the entrance of the united states into world war i effective april 6 1917 all civilian radio stations were shut down for the duration of the conflict . 15 march 25 1920 advertisement for radio news & music inc. 16 the ban on civilian radio stations was lifted on october 1 1919 and the deforest company soon returned to broadcasting from its highbridge station . then in early 1920 clarence c.s. thompson a de forest associate established radio news & music inc. which in march 1920 took up the promotion of newspaper run broadcasting stations offering local franchises and asking in national advertisements is your paper to be one of the pioneers distributing news and music by wireless 17 the detroit news became radio news & music s first and ultimately only newspaper customer . in a may 28 1920 letter the news made arrangements to lease a deforest ot 10 radio transmitter through radio news & music in order to develop a broadcasting service . 18 william edmund scripps son of the paper s founder and its then publisher would play the key role in establishing the station located at the detroit news building corner of lafayette and 2nd avenues . a local teenaged amateur radio operator michael delisle lyons was hired to install the transmitter in a second floor room connected to an antenna constructed on top of the building . 19 20 in 1917 lee de forest had sold the commercial rights to his radio patents to the american telephone & telegraph company at & t . however he retained the right to sell equipment for amateur and experimental use 21 and the new station would operate under a standard amateur radio license with the call sign 8mk . 22 following the initial installation to prepare the station for regular service elton m. plant an aspiring reporter who had a good speaking and singing voice was drafted as an announcer while frank edwards was hired to perform engineering duties . station preparation was conducted after normal work hours over a period of several months . william e. scripps was particularly enthusiastic about the project and kept close track as the equipment was being tested . 23 however these tests were done with very limited publicity as others at the paper worried that a radio station might adversely affect newspaper sales . in fact 8mk was originally licensed in michael delisle lyons name to hide the direct involvement of the scripps family . 24 front page announcement in the august 31 1920 detroit news introducing the detroit news radiophone 25 on august 20 1920 a series of trial broadcasts began to check if the equipment was ready for regular service . this date marks what wwj considers to be its official anniversary although because the station was still unpublicized the audience consisted of only a small number of interested local amateur radio operators . the test programs proved satisfactory so on august 31 1920 the front page of the detroit news announced that nightly except sunday broadcasts by the detroit news radiophone would start that evening . the debut program featured regularly updated returns for a primary election held earlier that day plus singing by lois johnson . at the beginning of the program elton plant introduced malcolm bingay managing director of the detroit news as the broadcast s master of ceremonies . 26 the front page of the next day s news contained enthusiastic reports attesting to the success of the election night broadcast which had begun promptly at 8 10 p. m. with the newspaper declaring the sending of the election returns by the detroit news radiophone tuesday night was fraught with romance and must go down in the history of man s conquest of the elements as a gigantic step in his progress while noting that the paper received numberless telephone calls to the news office asking for details of the apparatus . 27 the station continued with daily broadcasts in september most commonly between 7 and 8 p.m. 28 although the initial programs consisted mostly of phonograph records interspersed with news announcements programming also included fight results from the heavyweight championship bout between jack dempsey and billy miske on september 6 29 and in october play by play accounts as the cleveland indians bested the brooklyn dodgers in the 1920 world series baseball championship . 30 weekly vocal concerts were begun on september 23 with mable norton ayers as the first featured artist . 31 by late october the paper was boasting that hundreds of detroiters are now the possessors of wireless receiving sets by which they get the news bulletins music and other features sent out by the news radiophone 32 as the station prepared to broadcast returns for that year s presidential election on november 2 . 33 actress dorothy gish broadcasting over the original deforest ot 10 transmitter in 1920 . by 1922 the station staff had increased to ten 34 with the station s costs borne by the newspaper there was no advertising until the mid 1920s . performers were not paid however the station was still able to attract numerous illustrious persons willing to talk over the airwaves from the station s phonitorium studio including by 1922 lillian gish fanny brice ty cobb and babe ruth . 35 the station is believed to be the first to broadcast news reports regularly and the first to present regularly scheduled religious broadcasts and play by play sports reports . 36 8mk s transmitting wavelength was 200 meters 1500 khz the shared thus interference prone standard amateur wavelength although newspaper accounts stated that sometimes it transmitted on other less congested wavelengths . in the fall of 1921 the news applied for a special amateur station license 37 which would provide better coverage by allowing the station to move to a wavelength less subject to interference . the government agency responsible for radio regulation at the time was the united states department of commerce s bureau of