WQAM

Sports radio station in Miami

WQAM (560 AM, "AM 560 Sports") is a commercial radio station in Miami, Florida. It broadcasts a sports radio format and is owned by Audacy, Inc. The studios are in Audacy's Miami office on Northeast Second Avenue. Weekdays on WQAM begin with The Joe Rose Show, hosted by the former Miami Dolphins tight end. He's followed by Tobin & Leroy (Brendan Tobin and Leroy Hoard). In afternoon drive time, Hochman & Crowder (Marc Hochman and Channing Crowder) are heard. Nights and weekends feature syndicated shows from Infinity Sports Network and the BetQL Network. By day, WQAM broadcasts at 4,100 watts. But to protect other stations on 560 AM from interference, at night power is reduced to 1,000 watts. The station uses a non directional antenna. The transmitter site is on NE 71st Street near NE 4th Avenue in the Little River neighborhood of Miami. Radio Locator. com/WQAM

On December 9, 1922, the Miami Metropolis announced that broadcasts over its station, WFAW, were being suspended, pending a move to a new Electrical Equipment Company location, with the existing WFAW transmitter to be dismantled. On January 27, 1923, the Metropolis reported that a 100 watt transmitter to be used by the newspaper's broadcast service, that was designed and built by F. W. Borton of the Electrical Equipment Company and installed at Electrical Equipment's offices at Northwest Fourth Street, would make its debut broadcast the next evening. Two days later, the newspaper wrote: "With the completion of the enlarged radio plant of The Miami Daily Metropolis and Electrical Equipment Company, The Metropolis announces that the government has granted a new charter and also changed the station number to (WQAM). The station number until today was (WFAW)." However, WQAM was licensed to the Electrical Equipment Company, and WFAW to the Miami Daily Metropolis, and government regulators at the time considered them to be separate stations, so the two are reported individually in a March 1, 1923 government listing of active licenses. Thus, the FCC History Cards documenting WQAM's records list January 23, 1923 as its "Date First Licensed", corresponding with the first license issued with the WQAM call letters. The call letters were randomly assigned from a sequential roster of available call signs. Fred W. Borton, who became president of the Miami Broadcasting Company, made many of the electrical parts himself. In 1926, the station increased its power to 500 watts. The station was the first in the United States to install a permanent remote pick up from the U. S. Meteorological Department. Power was increased to 1,000 watts in 1928, and WQAM became a full time affiliate of CBS. In 1947, it switched to ABC Radio. In 1948, Barton sold his interest in the station and The Miami Herald assumed entire ownership.

WQAM is famous for its ownership by Storz Broadcasting in the 1960s. Storz installed a Top 40 format on WQAM and the station competed vigorously with rival WFUN 790 AM (now WAXY). In February 1964, WQAM interviewed and heavily promoted The Beatles' second and third nationally televised appearances on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show live from the Deauville Hotel in North Beach, Miami Beach. By far Miami and South Florida's preeminent radio station at the time, baby boomers from Jupiter to Key West, and even in Havana, listened to WQAM for the latest in local and American pop music from the 1960s well into the late 1970s. At that time, WQAM was one of the many AM radio stations airing Casey Kasem's American Top 40, and Cuban youngsters used to gather at friends' houses to listen to the countdown of America's most popular songs, especially the 8 hour long year end show of Billboard's top 100 songs of the year in which the syndication company that owned the show had put out on vinyl records at a speed of 33 RPM.

On February 29, 1980, Sunshine Wireless bought the station. At that time, AM radio was getting heavy competition from FM competitors and young people were increasingly tuning in FM stations for their hit music. It ended its run as a Top 40 station with a montage of music, soundbites and jingles from PAMS. WQAM then switched to a country music format. The station was known as Sun Country WQAM. from its Top 40 days. Sunshine Wireless now had an AM country station, with personality DJs, NBC News, and local information. WQAM was known as "56 Country WQAM" in the mid 80's and was successful in the ratings under the direction of program director Jon Holiday. WQAM had many veteran DJ's for the country format like Mike Bell, Mitch Lewis, Johnny Dolan, Boomer, and George Sheldon who had his start in radio at WQAM in 1986, WQAM shared studios with then WKQS at 9881 Sheridan Street in Cooper City. In 1986, WQAM would add sports talk programming in the evening hours with Ed Kaplan. By 1989, WQAM had been unable to achieve a full share point in the Arbitron surveys with its mix of country music and sports. In 1990, the station abandoned its country music format in favor of the satellite fed "Kool Gold" service, which aired 1950s and '60s oldies.

Around 1992, WQAM became an all sports station. WQAM is the flagship station for Miami Dolphins football, Florida Panthers hockey, and University of Miami Hurricanes athletics. At first, WQAM aired programming from the Yahoo! Sports Radio network. On January 2, 2013, the station switched its affiliation to CBS Sports Radio for after hours programming.

On October 2, 2014, Beasley Broadcast Group announced that it would trade five radio stations in Philadelphia and Miami (including WQAM) to CBS Radio in exchange for 14 stations located in Tampa, Charlotte and Philadelphia. The swap was completed on December 1, 2014. On December 23, 2015, WQAM was granted a construction permit to move its transmitter tower approximately 10 miles (16 km) north from Virginia Key to the [1360+1450] transmitter site at 360 NE 71st Street in the Little River neighborhood of Miami. The move was coupled with a decrease in daytime power from 5,000 watts to 4,100 watts. The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on November 17, making WQAM a sister station to fellow sports station 790 WAXY.