WMT (AM)

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This article is about the radio station. For the television station that formerly used the callsign WMT-TV, see KGAN.
WMT
FCC
Facility ID73593
ClassB
Power5,000 watts
Transmitter coordinates
42°3′40″N 91°32′42″W / 42.06111°N 91.54500°W / 42.06111; -91.54500 (WMT)
Links
Public license information
WebcastListen live (via iHeartRadio)
Website600wmtradio.iheart.com

WMT (600

KGAN-TV channel 2, near the intersection of Collins Road (Iowa Highway 100
) and Old Marion Road NE in Cedar Rapids, in a building known as "Broadcast Park".

By day, WMT is powered at 5,000

Class B
station broadcasting on a Regional AM frequency.

History

WMT is the oldest radio station in Cedar Rapids. It was first licensed, as WJAM, on August 1, 1922, to Douglas "Tex" Perham.

signed on the air on July 30, 1922, with a program presented in conjunction with The Evening Gazette.[5]

Waterloo Morning Tribune and Des Moines Register

In 1928, Harry Shaw purchased WJAM and moved the station from Cedar Rapids to

NBC Blue Network. It carried its dramas, comedies, news and sports during the "Golden Age of Radio.[6]

Shaw sold the station to the Cowles family, owners of the

Des Moines, another Cowles station, although WMT continued to operate a secondary studio in Waterloo until 1947. The Cowleses sold WMT to Delaware
-based American Broadcasting Stations in 1944.

WMT-TV, the first television station in Cedar Rapids, signed on at channel 2 on September 30, 1953. On February 27, 1963, WMT-FM (now KKSY-FM) debuted at 96.5 MHz with the same song, "Don't Send Me Posies When It's Shoesies That I Need", that was played on the AM station's inaugural broadcast 41 years earlier.

Ownership changes

Former WMT logo, still seen on building in Broadcast Park

Ownership of the WMT stations was passed on to Orion Broadcasting of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1968. In 1981, Cosmos Broadcasting of Greenville, South Carolina, purchased WMT-AM-FM. The company had also planned to purchase WMT-TV, but the television station was sold to Guy Gannett Communications because of ownership restrictions at the time. The TV station changed its call letters to KGAN. (WMT and KGAN continue to broadcast from the same building on Collins Road, known as "Broadcast Park"; however, WMT now gets its weather reports from KCRG-TV.)

An ownership group that included former Iowa governor

iHeartMedia, Inc.

News/talk

WMT logo when simulcasting on 95.7 FM

WMT has always maintained at

CBS Radio News for world and national coverage. By the 1990s, it had eliminated all music programming and became a talk radio station. In the early 2010s, it switched its network to Fox News Radio
.

Beginning January 2, 2012, WMT began simulcasting on KWMG in

MHz, to give WMT listeners the option to hear the station on FM. The simulcast ended on August 18, 2014.[7] FM 95.7 is now KOSY-FM, airing a contemporary hit radio
format.

References

  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WMT". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ "WMT-AM 600 kHz". radio-locator.com.
  3. ^ "New Stations", Radio Service Bulletin, August 1, 1922, page 3.
  4. ^ "Mississippi Divides K and W Ether Plants", Radio Digest, March 24, 1923, page 3.
  5. ^ "Gazette's First Radio Program Will Be Broadcasted on Sunday Night", The [Cedar Rapids, Iowa] Evening Gazette, July 29, 1922, page 1.
  6. ^ "Iowa" (PDF). Broadcasting Yearbook. 1935. p. 30 – via worldradiohistory.com.
  7. ^ "Northpine.com". January 2, 2012.
  • Kueter, Dale (June 17, 1995). "Owners of WHO Gain 2nd High-Profile Station".
    The Gazette
    . p. 1A.     (Retrieved on 2006-08-01 via Newsbank.)
  • Stein, Jeff (2004). Making Waves: The People and Places of Iowa Broadcasting. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: WDG Communications.
    ISBN 0-9718323-1-5
    .

External links
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