1050 AM WEPN: История нью-йоркской спортивной радиостанции

ESPN Radio station in New York City

WEPN (1050 kHz) is an sports radio AM radio station licensed to New York, New York. The station is owned and operated by Good Karma Brands and its transmitter site is located in North Bergen, New Jersey. The 1050 AM facility in New York signed on in 1922 as WHN. For the majority of its existence under these call letters, as well as during its 14 year stint as WMGM, the station broadcast several different music based formats, finally assuming a country music format in 1973. In 1987, WHN dropped its country format to become the first radio station dedicated entirely to sports programming, changing its call letters to WFAN. A series of transactions in the late 1980s resulted in WFAN's format and call letters moving in October 1988 to 660 AM (on which WFAN has continued to broadcast since), with the brokered programming format and call letters of The Forward owned WEVD (previously on 97.9 FM) being moved to 1050 AM in February 1989. In 2001, The Walt Disney Company took control of the station (later buying it and renaming it to WEPN in 2003) and transformed it into a full time affiliate of its ESPN Radio network. In 2012, WEPN became an affiliate of the Spanish language ESPN Deportes Radio network, reverting to broadcasting the English language ESPN Radio upon ESPN Deportes Radio's shutdown in 2019. Since its return to ESPN Radio programming in 2019, the station has aired the national ESPN Radio lineup in its entirety, including programs not cleared by WEPN FM and overflow play by play rights, including most New York Islanders games, and some New York Rangers games.

The 1050 frequency has a long history prior to this format. Starting in the 1920s as WHN, its programming was a standard mix of music, news, weather and drama. It was renamed WMGM in the late 1940s, continuing the same format until a switch to rock & roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As WHN again, it played adult standards in the 1960s and country music in the 1970s and 1980s (the format it was best known for). In the late 1980s as WFAN it was the original frequency for the very successful first of its kind all sports station. Then began a truly convoluted set of ownership, call sign, and format changes from the Spanish language WUKQ to WEVD, a brokered station in the 1990s, to today's incarnation as WEPN.

Originally owned by the Ridgewood Times newspaper, WHN was one of the first radio stations in New York City, going on the air on March 18, 1922, at AM frequency 833 kilocycles. The "Radio Gossip" appears to have been instructions on how to build or operate a radio set by E. H. Lewis of the New York Y. M. C. A. Radio School. Before the end of April, WHN had added a two hour Sunday afternoon program of religious music and a brief sermon, and augmented its Monday through Saturday programming with a talk on real estate at 6:15 p. m., and a children's bedtime story by James Baldwin at 7:15, followed by jazz or another talk. The station was sharing 360 meters with WJZ, WWZ and WOR. In March 1924, the station was sued by AT&T, which claimed that WHN failed to pay it for a commercial broadcasting license. However, public opinion turned against AT&T, with the public beginning to view AT&T as a monopolist, and AT&T began to fear an antitrust investigation. In the 1930s it broadcast the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, which was picked up by the CBS Radio Network. In 1938, WHN hosted a show called Whiz Kids. WHN made its final frequency change to 1050 in 1941.

Storer immediately dropped Top 40 for slow paced standards and beautiful music, the province of much of FM radio at the time. The station was renamed WHN again on February 28, 1962, with special permission of the FCC. Three letter call sign sets are a rarity and have not been issued to broadcast stations since the early 1930s. Through the 1960s, WHN became New York City's Mutual Broadcasting System affiliate. On air hosts included Jim Ameche, and early on, the comedy team of Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding (Bob and Ray). (Morning host Ted Brown remained with WHN for only a short time of transition, heading eventually to MOR WNEW. The station played vocalists such as Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Patti Page, and Johnny Mathis, plus a heavy dose of instrumentalist groups, notably Percy Faith, Al Hirt, Ray Conniff, and Henry Mancini. The station was about 75% vocal and 25% instrumental. Ratings were respectable, but the demographic was older by a generation or two. In 1968, WHN gradually began mixing in softer songs by artists like Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, The Beatles, The Association, and others with their easy listening format. Still, the ratings were below average. By 1970, the station had evolved into more of a MOR format and less of an easy listening format and by 1972 evolved into more of an adult contemporary format similar to what WNEW was then doing. WHN picked up New York Mets baseball for 1964 (with announcers Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner), after the team's original NYC flagship, WABC 770, dropped the rights, broadcasting through the 1966 season, with the Mets later returning to their airwaves from 1972 through 1974. The station also became a launching pad for the radio sports broadcasting career of Marv Albert, who hosted the "Interwoven Scoreboard" after Mets games and later on reintroduced New York fans to the Knicks and Rangers on radio. Initially, Rangers games were broadcast in small doses: the last two minutes of the first and second periods, then the entire third period. The entire metropolitan area enjoyed Red Holzman's miracle 1969–70 Knicks championship run, much of which was blacked out on TV. Overall though, WHN's ratings were still low. After a lot of research, on February 26, 1973, WHN became a country music station. The New York Metropolitan Area had never been a country music hot spot, and prior to WHN, the area had only had two country music stations: WJRZ in Hackensack, New Jersey and WTHE in Mineola, New York. In the early years of WHN's country format, it featured on air personalities such as Larry Kenney, Big Wilson and Jack Spector. Some of these were holdovers from the previous middle of the road format. As a country music station, they played artists like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Lynn Anderson, Kenny Rogers, Mel Tillis, Charley Pride, Mickey Gilley, Ronnie Milsap, and many more. Also, they mixed in non country and country pop cross over artists that had country friendly songs such as The Eagles, Elvis Presley, Anne Murray, Olivia Newton John, Linda Ronstadt, and others. Over the years, as WHN evolved as a country station, on air personalities such as Dan Daniel, Alan Colmes, Jerry Carroll and others moved in. During this era, WHN was programmed by Ed Salamon, who was inducted into the Country Radio Hall of Fame in 2006. Salamon and promotional partner Dale Pon were able to walk the line between country music like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and latter day Elvis, Top 40 radio programming tactics, and the late 70s rock artists –including The Eagles, Ronstadt, Newton John, and Rogers– who had absorbed country into their contemporary pop– and, using extensive, award winning television and transit advertising, into one of the most successful Country radio stations in history. In the late 1970s, Mutual Radio bought WHN from Storer. In 1980, WHN got some competition when WRVR was sold to Viacom and dropped jazz for country and became WKHK (also known as "Kick 106 FM"). As a result, ratings went down for WHN, although they again added New York Mets baseball to their lineup in 1983 (WHN had previously carried the Mets from 1964 through 1968, and again in 1972 through 1974). In 1984, WKHK became "Lite FM" WLTW, playing a soft adult contemporary format. Without direct competition, WHN remained country, with decent ratings. In 1985 Doubleday Broadcasting acquired WHN, and sold the station to Emmis Communications in 1986. Emmis added sports talk in the evenings, but kept the country format the rest of the day until 1987. In late April 1987, Emmis announced that WHN would drop country on July 1 for an all sports format, the first of its kind on radio. They would drop the WHN calls and become WFAN (The Fan). In May, NBC announced that Adult Contemporary WYNY (today's WQHT) would go country on July 1. Dan Taylor signed off WHN's 25 year history at 3 p. m. that day with "For The Good Times" by Ray Price.

The first voice heard on WFAN was that of Suzyn Waldman with a sports update at 3:00 pm, followed by the first show, which was hosted by Jim Lampley. Waldman would report for the station, covering the Yankees and Knicks, for 14 years. Other personalities that hosted shows besides Lampley in the 1050 kHz years included Bill Mazer, Pete Franklin, Greg Gumbel and Ed Coleman. WFAN also inherited broadcast rights to the defending World Series champion New York Mets from WHN, who had held the rights for several years. Ratings were low initially but gradually improved. In early 1988, General Electric, which now owned NBC through its purchase of RCA two years earlier, announced that it would sell off the NBC Radio division. In February of that year, GE made a multi station deal with Emmis; in New York, the WNBC and WYNY licenses were included in the sale. This ended up giving Emmis control of four frequencies: 97.1 FM, 103.5 FM, 660 AM and 1050 AM, whereas duopolies were not permitted yet by the Federal Communications Commission. On September 22, 1988, Emmis ended up moving their Dance/R&B "Hot" format and call letters WQHT over to the 97.1 frequency (while selling the 103.5 facility and WYNY's intellectual property over to Westwood One; that station would later become WKTU in 1996), and then moved WFAN's format and call letters from 1050 to 660 on October 7, at 5:30 pm, replacing "66 WNBC", which signed off forever.

The FCC approved the trade of WUKQ for WEVD on February 1, 1989. Under the deal, the Spanish AC format on 620 would move to 97.9 FM, and the station would become WSKQ FM. Meanwhile, WEVDs call letters and programming moved to the 1050 facility. Dating back to October 20, 1927, WEVD had been the radio station owned by the Workman's Circle (Arbeter Ring) in New York City. Its call letters were a tribute to legendary Socialist Party leader Eugene Victor Debs, who died one year earlier. This was WEVD's second existence on the AM dial, as it was originally a time share at 1330 AM with WPOW, an arrangement that lasted until 1984. WEVD soon added an FM counterpart at 107.5 FM in 1950, which then moved to 97.9 FM in 1952. Both stations maintained the same programming through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The AM station was sold on March 2, 1981, for $1.1 million to Salem Communications, and changed the call letters to WNYM (now WWRV) while WEVD continued on the FM dial. By 1988, the station was mostly an outlet for leased access foreign language programming. WEVD had a brokered format with Jewish programming (in Yiddish and English), ethnic programs, talk shows, and a big band show with Danny Stiles. The station generated cash flow by selling blocks of airtime, which allowed it to be profitable despite minimal ratings. By the mid 1990s, WEVD was branded as "News Talk 1050 WEVD", and had a talk format with a liberal emphasis on weekdays, with ethnic programming at night and on weekends. Talk hosts included Bill Mazer, former New York mayor Ed Koch, Jay Diamond, and Alan Colmes. During most of 1050's existence as WEVD, the station broadcast Mets, Jets, Knicks and Rangers games produced by WFAN, when WFAN was already broadcasting another game. WFAN game overruns are now broadcast on WBBR. In 2001, WEVD entered into a local marketing agreement with ABC/Disney and added ESPN Radio's The Dan Patrick Show to the talk lineup. Despite a public campaign to save the old format, the LMA was signed into effect. During its final day on air as "News Talk 1050 WEVD", the outraged public campaign was subtly extended into the station's control room, as soon to be terminated staffers occasionally interrupted portions of the brokered programming with audio clips, some of which contained obscenities. On September 1, 2001, Alan Colmes was the last voice heard on WEVD closing out the station by giving out his web address, playing Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye", and said the last words similar to the last words he said on 66 WNBC in 1988 saying, "We thank you very much, thank you for listening and for the very last time, This is News Talk 1050 WEVD New York". On September 2, 2001, at Midnight, WEVD began running ESPN Radio full time, albeit having simulcast WABC's coverage of the September 11 attacks nine days later. The first local voice on "1050 ESPN Radio" was Don La Greca.

The call sign was changed to WEPN on April 28, 2003, after being sold to ABC/Disney outright for $78 million. They continued to run the station as "1050 ESPN Radio". For years, WEPN billed itself as New York City's only all sports station, since competitor WFAN's former morning show, Imus in the Morning, was primarily a politically based talk show. However, this is now a misnomer, since Don Imus has been replaced by a sports themed show, Boomer and Carton in the Morning. Despite the fact that it is a 50,000 watt station, it cannot be heard clearly in many parts of the New York metropolitan area, especially west of New York City and in Suffolk County on Long Island. WEPN has a highly directional signal, due primarily to the fact that there is another 50,000 watt station on 1050, CHUM, a few hundred miles to the northwest in Toronto, and yet another 50,000 watt station, KYW, in Philadelphia on the adjacent frequency 1060 AM, along with protecting the signal of Monterrey based XEG in Northern Mexico to the southwest. According to Arbitron data of as early 2006, WFAN's daytime ratings were about 3 points higher on average than WEPN's, though WFAN's most known and now defunct Mike and the Mad Dog show had been airing since 1989, or well over a decade longer than WEPN had existed. Because of WEPN's limited signal, all Jets games once were simulcast on WABC, which reaches more of the suburbs. The station had also worked with MSG Network to find affiliates for Knicks and Rangers games outside WEPN's coverage area. Early in 2008, to strengthen the reach of WEPN, ESPN reached local marketing agreements to simulcast WEPN on WLIR in Hampton Bays, extending WEPN's reach to eastern Long Island, and on WNJE in Flemington (for "New Jersey's ESPN"), extending WEPN's reach into the Skylands Region and the Trenton market. WNJE broadcast the WEPN signal full time. WLIR broke off the simulcast in the summer of 2011 when the station was sold to a religious broadcaster. WNJE ended the simulcast with WEPN on December 3, 2012. There were also partnerships with Syracuse University and the United States Military Academy to air college football games, but those usually aired on former sister stations WABC or WQEW due to scheduling conflicts. WEPN had overflow agreements with WNYM and WWRL, the former airing Knicks or Rangers games that overlapped with each other or with the Jets and the latter airing when there were two overlapping games.

WEPN was expected to bid for the radio rights for either the New York Yankees, at the time on WCBS (AM), or New York Mets, from their longtime home of WFAN. Both teams had contracts that expired at the end of the 2013 season, with the Yankees purposely extending their deal with WCBS to expire at the same time as the Mets, for better leverage. It had been reported that WEPN had been looking to move to a stronger frequency to accommodate having a Major League Baseball team full time. Ultimately the Yankees moved to WFAN, displacing the Mets, who signed on with WOR.

On April 26, 2012, Disney announced a 12 year lease of Emmis Communications' 98.7 WRKS, under which WEPN's programming would transition to FM, and the AM signal would be converted to a new Spanish language sports format as part of the ESPN Deportes Radio network by mid September 2012 (to coincide with National Hispanic Heritage Month). The transition began on April 30 when WRKS, now christened as WEPN FM, began to simulcast WEPN's AM signal as 98.7 ESPN New York. WEPN broke away from the simulcast on September 7, 2012, and re launched as promised as ESPN Deportes Nueva York. At launch, the station carried the national lineup of the network, and local morning and afternoon drive shows (Firma ESPN and Zona ESPN NY). The station also acquired Spanish language rights to the New York Jets. On December 13, 2012, ESPN announced that it had acquired the rights to the Spanish language broadcasts of the Mets, starting with the 2013 season.

On June 11, 2019, ESPN announced that it would be discontinuing the ESPN Deportes Radio network on September 8, 2019. It was stated that WEPN would switch back to an English language sports format at this time. In September 2019, ESPN agreed to a two year deal to carry at least 60 New York Islanders broadcasts; due to WEPN FM's existing contracts with the Knicks and Rangers, most Islanders games are aired on 1050 AM, with select games on WEPN FM, and previous flagship WRHU continuing to be the primary station for games not carried on either WEPN or WEPN FM. In December 2021, Good Karma Brands announced that it would acquire WEPN. The deal closed on March 1, 2022.