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WEPN (AM)

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WEPN, more commonly known as 1050 ESPN Radio, is a round the clock all-sports talk station in New York City featuring national and local sports programming.

It is the radio home for the New York Knicks, the NBA, the New York Jets, St. John's men's basketball, Army football, Major League Baseball, and New York Rangers hockey. There is also a partnership with Seton Hall men's basketball, but those games usually air on sister stations WABC or WQEW because of scheduling conflicts.

WEPN bills itself as New York City's only all-sports station, since competitor WFAN's morning show, hosted by Don Imus, is not mainly about sports. Going against it, however, is a weaker signal than WFAN, as well as a highly directional signal. It cannot be heard clearly in many parts of the New York metropolitan area, especially west of New York City and in Suffolk County on Long Island. According to Arbitron data of as early 2006, WFAN's daytime ratings are generally 3 points higher on average than WEPN's, though WFAN's most-known Mike and the Mad Dog show has aired for over a decade longer than WEPN has existed.

The New York 1050 frequency had a long history prior to this format: starting in the 1920s as WHN it played a diversified format; renamed WMGM in the late 1940s the diversity continued until a switch to rock & roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s; as WHN again it played adult standards in the 1960s and country music in the 1970s and 1980s (the format it was best known for); in the late 1980s as WFAN it was (ironically enough) the original frequency for the very successful all-sports station, which began a truly convoluted set of ownership, call letter, and format changes via Spanish language WUKQ; as the eventual WEVD it was a low-rated brokered station in the 1990s; and then became WEPN ESPN sports radio in the 2000s.

WEPN typical weekday programming schedule

Detailed frequency history

WHN

WHN was one of the first radio stations in New York City, going on the air on March 18, 1922 at AM frequency 833 and originally owned by the Ridgewood Times newspaper. Original shows included children's programming. A court case in the 1920s against AT&T established some of the early legal principles for American broadcasting. The station became noted for playing jazz and contemporary dance music, including Sophie Tucker, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington, as well as for broadcasting Columbia University football games.

In 1928 the station was bought by the Loew's Theatre Organization. During the 1920s the station's frequency changed to 830, 760, and then 1010.

In the 1930s it broadcast the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, which became so popular it was picked up by the CBS Radio Network.

WHN made its final frequency change to 1050 in 1941. During the 1940s the programs Radio Newsreel and Newsreel Theater were prototypes for what would later become the all-news radio format. The station broadcast Brooklyn Dodgers games with Red Barber as well as the New York Giants and New York Rangers with Marty Glickman.

WMGM

On September 15, 1948, the station changed its call letters to WMGM. The station had a diversified format that included pop standard hits, drama, talk, and sports, and briefly featured New York talk legend Barry Gray.

In the mid to late 1950s the station switched to playing rock and roll hits. They played records and were more up-tempo than the competition, such as those by Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Lymon, the Crystals, the Tokens, Ray Charles, Ricky Nelson, and Bill Haley.

By 1962, 1010 WINS, 770 WABC, and 570 WMCA were also playing predominantly rock and roll music. At that point 1050 WMGM was sold to Storer Broadcasting, which owned mostly TV stations, but ironically, also owned top-rated WIBG, a rock & roll radio station less than 100 miles away in Philadelphia. But alas, WIBG did not have three other stations competing with it.

WHN again

Storer immediately dropped Top 40 for Pop Standards. The station was renamed WHN again on February 28, 1962.

Through the 1960s, WHN, unlike WNEW and WOR, played no rock music whatsoever. As New York City's Mutual Radio Network affiliate, on-air hosts included Jim Ameche (brother of actor Don Ameche), Jack Sterling, and, early on, the comedy team of Bob Elliot & Ray Goulding (Bob and Ray). They played artists like Nat King Cole, Al Hirt, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis, Percy Faith, and Ray Conniff. Ratings were decent.

In the 1970s they did add some soft rock to the mix. By then they had personalities like Lee Arnold, Jack Spector, Del Demontroux, Dan Daniel, and others.

The ratings were still low, so on February 26, 1973 WHN became a country music station. New York City had never been a big country music town and only had a country music station in the late 1960s on 970 WJRZ (which became Top 40 WWDJ in 1971 and religious in 1974). For a time in the 70s, the program director of WHN was Ruth Meyer, who had led top 40 WMCA to the top spot in the New York ratings in the 60s.

As a country music station they played artists like Johnny Cash, Willy Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Lynn Anderson, Kenny Rogers, Mel Tillis, Charley Pride, Mickey Gilly, Ronnie Milsap, and many more. Also they mixed in non-country artists that had country friendly songs such as The Eagles, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Anne Murray, the Commodores, Olivia Newton John, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, and others.

Usually they rated in the top 10 as New York's only country station. On-air personalities like Mike Fitzgerald, Dan Taylor, and many others moved in.

In the late 1970s Mutual Radio would buy WHN from Storer. In 1980 they got some competition when 106.7 WRVR was sold to Viacom and dropped jazz for country and became WKHK. As a result, ratings went down for WHN, but they stuck it out. They added New York Mets baseball and other pro sports teams to their lineup in evenings.

In 1984 WKHK 106.7 became Lite FM 106.7 WLTW playing a soft AC format which has evolved to a mainstream AC format today. Now without direct competition, WHN 1050 remained country with decent ratings.

In 1985 Doubleday Broadcasting would buy 1050 WHN. In 1986 Emmis Communications bought WHN in a corporate deal. Emmis added sports talk in the evenings, but kept the country format the rest of the day until 1987.

In late April 1987, Emmis announced that WHN would drop country on July 1 for sports talk and professional sports play-by-play. They would drop the WHN calls and become WFAN. In May, NBC announced that Adult Contemporary WYNY 97.1 would go country on July 1, the same day as WHN ended the format.

The airstaff said their goodbyes at the end of June. Dan Taylor signed off at 3 PM with "For The Good Times" by Ray Price on July 1, 1987.

WFAN

See WFAN (AM) for full history

At that time WFAN made its debut on 1050.

Ratings were low initially but slowly climbing. In 1988 NBC was leaving radio, so they sold their stations to Emmis; Emmis then had control of 97.1 and 103.5 FM and 660 and 1050 AM. Emmis opted to sell 103.5 to Westwood One and the WYNY intellectual country unit as well so Country 97 WYNY became Country 103.5 WYNY. Emmis kept 97.1 and moved their Dance/R & B format WQHT there.

Emmis moved WFAN from 1050 to 660 on 1988-10-20, replacing 66 WNBC. Infinity would later buy 660 WFAN in 1992. WFAN is still occupying 660 today with good ratings.

WUKQ

As for 1050, Spanish Broadcasting System would buy them. However, Spanish Broadcasting already owned AM 620 in Newark, New Jersey, formerly WVNJ, which once had an FM at 100.3, which interestingly, if not coincidentally, was at one time WMGM-FM. The FCC granted them a waiver to run 1050 without commericals until it could be sold. In October 1988 when WFAN moved from 1050 to 660, 620 WSKQ flipped from Spanish Adult Contemporary to Spanish Oldies while 1050 became KQ 1050 WUKQ playing Spanish Adult Contemporary music commercial-free to satisfy the FCC requirement.

WEVD

Shortly thereafter, the Jewish Daily Forward would swap 97.9 WEVD for 1050 WUKQ. WEVD was the radio station owned by the Workman's Circle (Arbeter Ring) in New York City; its call letters stood for Eugene Victor Debs. The station had been a venue for leased access foreign languange programming. Under the deal, the Spanish AC format on 620 would move to FM, and the station would become FM-98 WSKQ-FM. This happened early in 1989. (Eventually FM-98 would evolve into tropical-leaning KQ-97.9, then Mega 97.9 with a complete concentration on tropical Spanish music).

WEVD's format though would move to 1050 in early 1989. 1050 WEVD had a brokered format with Jewish programming, Ethnic programs, talk shows, and a big band show with Danny Stiles. Ratings were very very low but the station made a profit selling blocks of airtime.

By the mid 1990s WEVD had a talk format on weekdays but ethnic programming nights and weekends. Talk hosts were a mostly liberal lot, including New York sports legend Bill Mazer, former New York mayor Ed Koch, Sam Greenfield, and Alan Colmes.

In 2001 WEVD entered into a local marketing agreement with ABC/Disney and added ESPN Radio's The Dan Patrick Show to the talk lineup. A campaign was launched to save the old format. Then on September 2, 2001 began running ESPN Radio 24/7.

WEPN

The station was renamed WEPN on April 28, 2003 after being sold to ABC/Disney outright, which continues to run the station as 1050 ESPN Radio.


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