WTIC (AM)
FCC | |
Facility ID | 66464 |
---|---|
Class | A |
Power | 50,000 watts |
Transmitter coordinates | 41°46′39.36″N 72°48′17.35″W / 41.7776000°N 72.8048194°W |
Repeater(s) | 96.5 WTIC-FM HD2 (Hartford) |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Webcast | Listen live (via Audacy) |
Website | www |
WTIC (1080
WTIC is a
WTIC is the primary entry point (PEP) for the Emergency Alert System (EAS) in Connecticut.
History
Early years
WTIC is the second oldest radio station in Connecticut, after
The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was formed in 1927, and its reauthorization a year later included the Davis Amendment, which specified an nationwide "equality of radio broadcasting service".[10] The United States was divided into 5 zones, with 8 "clear channel" frequencies assigned to each zone. Zone 1 was located in New England, and WTIC was assigned to one of its clear channel allocations, 1060 kHz. On November 11, 1928, the FRC made a sweeping nationwide reallocation, based on its General Order 40. WTIC was temporarily assigned to 600 kHz, pending construction of a high-powered transmitter needed for broadcasting on its 1060 kHz assignment. WBAL in Baltimore, Maryland was also assigned to 1060 kHz, and this station was close enough to Hartford to require that it and WTIC sharetime.[11]
NBC affiliation
WTIC was among the first
In 1940, WTIC began experimenting with FM radio, putting W1XSO on the air on 43.2 MHz. It later became 96.5
In the late 1960s, with declining night time listenership, WTIC management decided that there was a market for long-form shows that could be packaged and sold to sponsors. Two of those shows were The Golden Age of Radio and A One Night Stand with the Big Bands. They were broadcast monthly through the mid 1970s.
Ownership changes
In 1973, Travelers Insurance announced it would divest its broadcasting properties. WTIC-TV channel 3 was sold to Post-Newsweek Stations (now the Graham Media Group) in 1974, switching its call sign to WFSB. WTIC-AM-FM were sold to a group of its managers, doing business as the "Ten-Eighty Corporation".[14] Also in the 1980s, some more talk shows were added to WTIC's line up. In the 1990s, as fewer listeners tuned to AM radio for music, WTIC added more talk programming, eventually eliminating the music shows.
In 1998,
Schedule shake-up
In December 2008, the station made several programming changes. Former
On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with
Bob Steele
Longtime WTIC personality Bob Steele spent 66 years on WTIC, most of them as the morning drive time host. He joined the station in 1936. At one point, nearly a third of all radios in the Hartford area were tuned to Steele's wake up show. He was also regularly seen on Channel 3, WTIC's former sister television station, hosting programs and delivering a nightly sports report.
In 1991, Bob Steele retired from hosting weekday mornings. Tom McCarthy had already begun doing the early part of the morning shift and took over the entire 5:30 to 10 a.m. time slot.[20] Steele continued hosting Saturday mornings until his death in 2002 at age 91. In 2011 a section of Grove Street near the WTIC studios was renamed Bob Steele Street.
Programming
On weekdays, WTIC features local shows during the day, with
The station is an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots Radio Networks. The station features local newsbreaks, as well as updates from CBS News Radio. WTIC's newsroom is staffed 24 hours a day with a team of local newscasters and reporters. It shares some news and weather forecasts with WFSB, the CBS TV affiliate in Hartford.
Listeners have been setting their watches to WTIC for many years. The station is known for its historic hourly time tone, the Morse code letter "V", which has been in use since 1943. This makes it one of the oldest continuous broadcast interval signals in the world. The sequence matches the opening sequence of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, whose "short-short-short-long" rhythm matches that of the Morse code letter "V", and was selected during World War II to stand for "victory".[21] WTIC employs a Global Positioning System (GPS) master clock system that activates the custom-built time-tone generator shortly before the top of the hour, timed so the final tone occurs precisely on the hour (even though everything else heard on the station is on a 10-second delay).
References
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WTIC". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ "General Contest Rules". audacy.com. March 5, 2021.
- ^ "WTIC-AM 1080 kHz - Hartford, CT". radio-locator.com.
- ^ WTIC (advertisement), Broadcasting, April 17, 1944, page 39.
- ^ "New Stations", Radio Service Bulletin, January 2, 1925, page 3.
- ^ "Travelers Radio Broadcasts Today", Hartford Courant, December 19, 1924, page 24.
- ^ "Travelers Radio Program of Carols", Hartford Courant, December 21, 1924, page 2A.
- ^ "Through the Static", New Britain (Connecticut) Daily Herald, February 11, 1925, page 16.
- ^ "New Stations and Changes", Radio Digest, February 21, 1925, page 7.
- ^ An Act Continuing for one year the powers and authority of the Federal Radio Commission under the Radio Act of 1927, approved March 28, 1928, page 2.
- ^ "Revised list of broadcasting stations, by frequencies, effective 3 a. m., November 11, 1928, eastern standard time", Second Annual Report of the Federal Radio Commission for the Year Ended June 30, 1928, Together With Supplemental Report for the Period From July 1, 1928, to September 30, 1928, pages 201, 205.
- ^ "Successful Duplication of WTIC and KRLD" by D. A. Reed, Broadcasting, November 1, 1936, pages 57-58.
- ^ "United States station assignments by frequency", Arrangement between the United States of America, Canada, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico, comprising recommendations of the North American Regional Radio-Engineering Meeting (supplemental to North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, Habana, 1937). Signed at Washington January 30, 1941; effective March 29, 1941, page 1428.
- ^ "Broadcasting Yearbook 1975 page C-32" (PDF).
- ^ Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook 2000 page D-79
- ^ Grant, Steve. "Colin McEnroe, Diane Smith Laid Off By WTIC-AM". Hartford Courant. Archived from the original on December 31, 2008.
- ^ "CBS Radio To Merge With Entercom - RadioInsight".
- ^ "Entercom Receives FCC Approval for Merger with CBS Radio". Entercom. November 9, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- ^ Venta, Lance (November 17, 2017). "Entercom Completes CBS Radio Merger". Radio Insight. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- ^ "Bob Steele Throws Last Punchline". Hartford Courant. October 1, 1991. Retrieved February 26, 2024.
- ^ "The Sound of Victory" , WTIC: Radio to Remember, page 25.
External links
- Official website
- WTIC in the FCC AM station database
- WTIC in Nielsen Audio's AM station database
- FCC History Cards for WTIC (covering 1924-1980)
- Northeast Airchecks, with an aircheck of their switch to 50,000 watts in 1929
- Goldenage-WTIC.org Recordings of the monthly 1960s and 1970s The Golden Age of Radio and A One Night Stand with the Big Bands provided by former WTIC personality, Dick Bertel and former WTIC engineer Bob Scherago.
- WTIC Alumni website Site created by Bill Clede and carried on by David Kaplan featuring pictures, audio, information and trivia about the old WTIC AM/FM/TV before its sale by the Travelers in 1974.