WOWO (AM) - History

History

Established in 1925, WOWO began broadcasting at 500 watts of power on 1320 kHz on March 31, 1925 and was owned by Chester Keen of Main Auto Supply Company; the station was originally located upstairs of the Main Auto. The station's callsign was chosen to start with the letter "W" as required by the FCC for all stations in the United States at the time. During the 1920s, the FCC permitted either three- or four-letter callsigns, with three-letter call signs being preferred for brevity. By choosing WOWO for easy pronunciation as a two-syllable word, in some measure WOWO had a callsign that exhibited even more brevity than even the three-letter callsigns. Despite this, disk jockeys on WOWO were prohibited from calling the station "woe-woe" on the air until the late 1960s, when a contest was introduced to identify songs in which the "woe" sound appeared. The WOWO callsign was later backfilled as a tongue-in-cheek acronym: "Wayne Offers Wonderful Opportunities". In 1927, WOWO was made a pioneer station of CBS radio network and remained a CBS affiliate until 1956.

In 1928, Keen sold WOWO to Fred Zieg. In 1929, Zieg received FCC approval to move WOWO to 1160 kHz with a power of 10,000 watts and establish WGL on WOWO's former 1320 kHz. Until WOWO's purchase by Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1936, Zieg managed the advertising sales of both WOWO and WGL through WOWO-WGL Sales Service, Inc.

On July 4, 1929, the station's studio building caught fire. No casualties were reported, and operations were moved to a nearby location. Amazingly enough, the station's large pipe organ—a familiar sound on the station—was not damaged in the blaze. The WOWO pipe organ was later relocated to Gospel Temple in Fort Wayne.

During August 1936, WOWO was acquired by Westinghouse Broadcasting as its first owned and operated radio station. Westinghouse built new studios for WOWO at 925 South Harrison Street in Fort Wayne, which were completed on May 1, 1937. On that same date WOWO joined the NBC Blue radio network, while maintaining its CBS network affiliation, as multiple network affiliations were common for NBC-Blue affiliates. On March 29, 1941 Westinghouse completed the FCC licensing of WOWO's famous clear-channel broadcasting on 1190 kHz. During and after World War II, these clear-channel broadcasts made WOWO a popular radio super-station of sorts throughout the eastern United States. Although there were other radio stations in the eastern United States broadcasting on 1190 kHz during daylight hours, they were required by the FCC either to cease broadcasting at sunset or to reduce their transmitted power at sunset to make way for WOWO's clear-channel signal. WOWO's clear-channel license and resulting large audience permitted various owners over the years to consider WOWO their flagship station.

On April 30, 1952, WOWO's studio and offices were relocated to the upper floors of 128 West Washington Blvd. It was here that the station began its famous "fire-escape" weather forecasts, involving obtaining weather conditions from the fire escape ledge. In 1977, WOWO's studios moved to the fourth floor of the Central Building at 203 West Wayne Street in Fort Wayne, where it would remain for the next fifteen years. When the station relocated to the Central Building, the old fire escape was cut into small pieces, encapsulated in lucite and distributed as a promotional paper weight.

Programming for the station changed several times. After dropping its network affiliations in 1956, the station played modern (for the time) music. During its heyday, WOWO was one of North America's most listened-to Top 40 music stations. WOWO continued playing the hits until 1988, when the station resumed playing oldies. In 1992 the format changed to adult contemporary, and then in 1996, the station switched to a news-talk format which remains to this day.

Fort Wayne being equidistant from Chicago, Detroit and Cincinnati, clear-channel WOWO competed with WLS, WJR, and WLW for the agricultural market. Farmers would have the radio turned on in the milking parlor; research seemed to indicated that it relaxed the cows and produced more milk. In an era when live music was the rule, rather than the exception on the radio, WOWO's Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers proved popular with rural audiences, and eventually WLS, WJR and WLW surrendered the rural audience to concentrate on their urban audiences, leaving WOWO unchallenged for the hinterlands, and giving them the largest audience of any Fort Wayne area station for decades, until FM stations largely displaced AM stations. WOWO could be heard as far away as Florida, especially early in the morning and late at night and many snowbirds listened to WOWO year-around. They shut down the transmitter on Sunday nights, giving Philadelphia station WCAU at 1210 AM a slight ratings boost as sleepless WOWO listeners sought something to listen to.

Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers' "Little Red Barn" was used as a theme song for Bob Sievers' daily show, and when recorded music became the norm for the station, they continued to have a live show called "Little Red Barn" on Saturdays featuring Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers. Nancy Lee was the wife of Sam DeVincent, music librarian for the station.