WBAL (AM) - History

History

WBAL began broadcasting after being dedicated on November 2, 1925, as a subsidiary of the Consolidated Gas Electric Light and Power Company, a predecessor of Constellation Energy. WBAL's initial broadcasting studio was located at the utility's offices on Lexington Street, and it operated as part of the Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Company. On January 12, 1935, with radio becoming more commercialized, there was little justification for public service company ownership of a radio station, and WBAL was sold to the Hearst-controlled American Radio News Corporation.

In the 1930s, WBAL became the flagship station for the international broadcast of radio evangelist G. E. Lowman, which originated in Baltimore until 1959. During the 1960s, WBAL had a full service free-flowing Middle Of The Road music format heavily emphasising personality. The station played a mix of soft rock and roll and non rock songs/standards.

By the early 1970s, the station had a full-service adult contemporary music format with the exception of weekday evenings, where the station employed talk programming. Among its personalities during that period were program host Jay Grayson, Harley Brinsfield (who had a long-running Saturday night jazz music program, The Harley Show), and White House-accredited newsman Galen Fromme. In the early 1980s, WBAL began running talk shows overnights as well as evenings and continued to play some music during the day. Music gradually decreased and in the fall of 1985, WBAL had transitioned to its current news-talk format, winning 19 national Edward R. Murrow Awards since then – the most of any local U.S. radio station. Since the mid-1990s, the station has become increasingly conservative, both in its on-air personalities and its editorial disposition.

In 2010, WBAL switched its morning (5–9 AM) and afternoon (3–6 PM) drive-time shows to an all-news format, entitled Maryland's Morning News and Afternoon News Journal respectively (the latter show has since been renamed to Maryland's News Now). The all-news blocks include national newscasts from CBS at the top of each hour.

In addition to its analog 1090 kHz signal, WBAL is repeated on WIYY-HD4, a digital subchannel of WIYY's HD Radio signal.