WZON (AM) - History

History

The station signed on in December 1926 as WLBZ, owned by Thompson L. Guernsey and operating from Dover-Foxcroft at 1440 kHz. It moved to 620 in 1928; the following year, the station moved to Bangor and was transferred to Maine Broadcasting Company, which was controlled by Guernsey. WLBZ was a CBS affiliate by 1930; in 1939, it switched to NBC. Guernsey first attempted to sell the station to the Rines family, owner of WCSH in Portland, in 1938; however, Guernsey did not complete the deal, leading the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dismiss the application on June 18, 1940. However, in 1944, to help pay off an outstanding note, Guernsey was forced to sell WLBZ at auction to the Rines-controlled Eastland Broadcasting Company.

By 1973, WLBZ had a middle-of-the-road format; three years later, the station adopted an all-news format via NBC's News and Information Service (NIS). After NBC closed NIS a year later, WLBZ returned to its previous format for a time before flipping to top 40 as "Z62" in 1978.

The Rines' broadcasting company, the Maine Broadcasting System, decided to sell their radio stations in the early 1980s to focus on their television properties (including WLBZ-TV, which the Rines had acquired in 1958); as a result, in 1981, WLBZ was sold to Acton Communications and became WACZ. Two years later, Stephen King purchased the station and implemented a rock format under the current WZON call letters. Though WZON attracted a loyal audience, it was financially unsuccessful, leading the station to begin operating on a noncommercial basis in 1988. Under this model, WZON began to ask for contributions from its listeners — similar to public radio stations.

King sold the station to Dr. John Tozer in 1990. Tozer returned WZON to commercial operation with a talk format (and was the first station in Bangor to carry Rush Limbaugh); however, it remained unprofitable, and after two years he sold the station to NEB Communications. Even after the sale, WZON's financial problems continued, with employees' paychecks bouncing and NEB falling behind on payments to both Tozer and King (who still owned the station's studios), and within months the station was forced into bankruptcy. In 1993, a bankruptcy court judge approved a sale of the station back to King, who began to shift WZON to an all-sports format that August; the last non-sports shows, including Limbaugh and Larry King, were dropped in January 1994.

Even after the various changes at the station, WZON maintained its NBC Radio affiliation until 1999, when it was dropped after over 60 years in favor of ABC News Radio.

WZON changed its format to progressive talk, simulcast with WZON-FM, on November 1, 2010; this returned the station to political talk programming. The station retained its local sports broadcasts including Boston Celtics basketball. The morning show hosts were also retained, hosting an afternoon show on the AM side only, but were let go in May 2012 due to the station "losing too much money". Initially, the station carried CNN Radio newscasts; after CNN stopped providing radio newscasts on March 31, 2012, WZON switched to NBC News Radio, returning NBC-branded newscasts to the station for the first time in 13 years. WZON-FM dropped the progressive talk format in November 2012 (becoming WZLO), with the format continuing on the AM station.