WBT (AM)
| wbtlogo.gif | |
| Broadcast area | Charlotte metropolitan area |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 1110 kHz (AM) 99.3 MHz (FM) |
| Branding | News/Talk 1110 |
| Programming | |
| Format | News/Talk |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Greater Media |
| History | |
First air date | AM: April 10, 1922 (originally experimental as 4XD from December 19, 1920 - April 9, 1922) FM: August 30th, 1969 |
| Technical information | |
| Class | Class A AM Station Class C3 FM Station |
| Power | 50,000 Watts (AM) |
| ERP | 7,700 Watts (FM) |
| Links | |
| Webcast | WBT-AM Live Feed |
| Website | wbt.com |
WBT (known on air as News Talk 1110) is a 50,000 watt clear-channel radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina, broadcasting on the AM dial at 1110 kHz. It simulcasts on WBT-FM, at 99.3 MHz in Chester, South Carolina. It is owned by Greater Media. The station's studios are located just west of downtown Charlotte, while its transmitter is located in the southern part of the city.
Programming
The station relies mostly on locally-produced talk shows and offers podcasts of its local shows on its official site. Like many talk radio stations, WBT presents news, weather, and traffic reports each half hour.
Weekday lineup
- Charlotte's Morning News with Al Gardner and Stacey Simms (5:00am to 9:00am)
- Keith Larson (9:00am to noon)
- Rush Limbaugh (noon to 3:00pm)
- Jeff Katz (3:00pm to 6:00pm)
- John Hancock (6:00pm to 9:00pm)
- Tara Servatius (9:00pm to midnight)
- Neal Boortz (midnight to 1:00am)
- Coast to Coast AM with George Noory (1:00am to 5:00am)
Sports
WBT is the flagship station of the Carolina Panthers. It was the flagship of the Charlotte Hornets from the team's debut in 1988 until the team moved to New Orleans in 2002. The University of North Carolina Tar Heels also had a broadcast home on WBT for nearly 30 years, until the station opted not to renew its contract with the team in 2006, citing ratings and revenue.
Past programming
Past hosts include "Hello" Henry Boggan, H.A. Thompson, Ty Boyd, Grady Cole, "Rockin'" Ray Gooding, James K. Flynn, Bob Lacey, Spike O'Dell, Richard Spires, Brad Krantz, Jason Lewis, and Don Russell (currently hosting the weekend version of Charlotte's Morning News).
History
The station dates to December 1920, when Fred Laxton, Earle Gluck and Fred Bunker set up an amateur radio station in Laxton's home. Four months later, the station received an experimental license as 4XD. The trio decided to go commercial in 1922, and incorporated as the Southern Radio Corporation. In April, the station signed on as the first fully-licensed radio station south of Washington, D.C. WSB in Atlanta was the first station in the Southeast to actually broadcast, a month before WBT. However, the Commerce Department only authorized WSB to broadcast weather reports until it received its license a few months after WBT.
In 1925, the original owners sold WBT to Charlotte Buick dealer C.C. Coddington, who promoted both the radio station and his auto dealership with the slogan "Watch Buicks Travel." Coddington located the station's transmitter site at a farm property he owned on Nations Ford Road in south Charlotte, where it remains today. He sold WBT to the two-year-old CBS network in 1929, beginning a relationship between the station and the network which also continues today. A series of power increases brought the station to its current 50,000 watts. New FCC regulations forced CBS to sell the station to Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company, forerunner of Jefferson-Pilot, in 1945, though it remained a CBS affiliate.
In 1925, Freeman Gosden and Charlie Correll started a comedy show carried by WBT that was a forerunner to Amos and Andy. Russ Hodges, later famous as the radio voice of the New York/San Francisco Giants, worked for a time at WBT.
In 1995, Jefferson-Pilot bought WBZK-FM (which signed on August 30th, 1969) in Chester to improve its nighttime coverage in the Charlotte area. The AM station must adjust its coverage at night (see below), resulting in spotty coverage in much of the western portion of the area. Soon after the purchase, WBZK's calls became WBT-FM. The transmitter is located 40 miles southwest of Charlotte. WBT-FM almost always simulcasts its AM sister, although the two have occasionally carried different programming. For example, in 1998 and 1999, the FM station carried audio of the Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings, while the AM station continued with its regularly scheduled programs.
Lincoln Financial Group bought Jefferson-Pilot in 2006. The merged company retained Jefferson-Pilot's broadcasting division, renaming it Lincoln Financial Media. Lincoln Financial also owns radio sister station WLNK-FM (which was originally known as WBT-FM on two occasions before the purchase of the Chester station) and CBS television affiliate WBTV, whose call letters are based on those of its radio sibling.
On November 12, 2007, Lincoln Financial announced it was selling WBT-AM-FM and WLNK to Greater Media of Braintree, Massachusetts. It also announced it was selling its three television stations, including WBTV, to Raycom Media--thus breaking up Charlotte's last heritage radio/television cluster. Greater Media had long wanted to expand into the fast-growing Charlotte market. The sale closed on January 31, 2008.
Broadcasting
WBT's unusual diamond-shaped antennas (called Blaw-Knox Towers), make up three of only eight still operational in the United States. In the morning hours of September 22, 1989, Hurricane Hugo slammed into Charlotte. The storm severely damaged two of WBT's towers and nearly killed station engineer Bob White. The FCC approved WBT to operate on a full-power non-directional pattern for the next year while the two damaged towers were rebuilt.
Despite its clear-channel status, WBT's signal is spotty at best in some parts of the Charlotte metropolitan area at night because it must adjust its coverage at sundown to protect co-located KFAB in Omaha, Nebraska. Even though WBT must direct its signal north-south as a result, its nighttime signal still reaches parts of 22 states (including much of the country east of the Mississippi River) as well as portions of Ontario and Quebec. It can also be heard in some Caribbean islands. For many years, WBT boasted that it could be heard "from Maine to Miami" at night.