Does anyone remember if WLAC used to stay nondirectional until KGA Sunset? A lot of radio people and popular recording artists used to say they were influenced by John R playing rare R & B on WLAC. I don't remember what time his show started, but some people have mentioned listened to it further West and I'm not sure if it stayed nondirectional after John R's show started.
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Did WLAC 1510 Used To Stay Nondirectional Until KGA 1510 Sunset?
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
I believe you're right. WLAC, a I-B station, was non-directional in the daytime. Broadcasting Yearbook lists it as "DA-N" meaning directional antenna at night. And usually if a station needed to go directional at night to protect a I-B station on its frequency in the West, it could put off doing that until sunset happened in that Western city.
Nashville got two Class I assignments, 650 WSM which was a I-A and 1510 WLAC, a I-B. (How many cities much larger than Nashville got no Class I assignments, let alone two?) WLAC was not owned by a big company but it had that big 50,000 watt power. So it was able to use that signal to broadcast R&B music around the South when its daytime audience had stopped listening. If I remember the stories, those late night hours were brokered, where the hosts paid for the time and could sell it to their own sponsors.
In many towns in the South, where local stations had no interest in playing "race music," WLAC filled that need. It was valued by young black listeners and white kids who were fans of the music.
Nashville got two Class I assignments, 650 WSM which was a I-A and 1510 WLAC, a I-B. (How many cities much larger than Nashville got no Class I assignments, let alone two?) WLAC was not owned by a big company but it had that big 50,000 watt power. So it was able to use that signal to broadcast R&B music around the South when its daytime audience had stopped listening. If I remember the stories, those late night hours were brokered, where the hosts paid for the time and could sell it to their own sponsors.
In many towns in the South, where local stations had no interest in playing "race music," WLAC filled that need. It was valued by young black listeners and white kids who were fans of the music.
Lots, actually. Fresno, Spokane, Des Moines, Shreveport, Sacramento, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Macon, Charlotte, Richmond, and lots of others got 1 A and 1 B clear channel stations. Remember, this was done over 90 years ago, and many cities that were comparatively large then got clear channels, while other that were small or just growing got none.
Like WSM and many many major stations in the 20's and 30's, were owned by large insurance companies.
That was not until decades after the station was first licensed. The station started to broadcast R&B after the "death" of night network drama and comedy and live music and variety shows. That was in the 1950's and the station was over 30 years old by then.
That's because, on 1510 and highly directional at night, that station did not cover its own market well enough to compete even with stations like WKDA and WMAK!
If you look through the issues from the 50's and 60's in "Sponsor" magazine there were hundreds and hundreds of Black targeted and programmed across America, particularly the South. In fact, there were a number of groups of multiple Black programmed stations all across the south.
Many Class I-B stations in the Eastern part of the country were allowed to stay on Day facilities until Sunset at the Class I-B station further West. WTIC, WCKY, and WQXR were three that I'm sure of.
The World Radio And Television Handbook also has some Class II stations listed as L-Limited. Among these are WJJD 1160 50 L3 and WAIT 820 5 L1, which signed off at Sunset at KSL 1160 and WBAP 820.
Of Tennessee.
Wasn't there a station in Boston which caused the other null to the northeast. I believe they could not stay non directional after sunset.
There is co-channel WMEX in Boston, which had 50kW day and night, directional out to sea. WMEX and WLAC protected each other. WMEX has since downgraded to non-directional operation with 100W nights. KGA/Spokane has also downgraded to ND operation and now has 0.54kW nights.
KOB wasn't a class I after NARBA. The Ann Velia history of KOB (which is at worldradiohistory.com; I have the book myself) has the only explanation I've ever seen of how that happened. The downgrade is what the decades of court cases were about and, ultimately, KOB was forced to go directional at night. You can still see the outcome as you drive south on Interstate 25 in the northern part of Albuquerque: near the Rio Grande, there's the tall half-wave KKOB tower next to the shorter tower that was quickly constructed in 1957. If I recall correctly, WABC was also going to be required to directionalize with both stations having I-B status but WABC fought that and ultimately won. Hubbard later pursued getting I-A status for KOB but that was always going to be an uphill battle. Greedy New York City got its way.
It was always interesting to me how Kansas City never had a I-A or I-B station. The only explanation I've heard for that was that WDAF had a privileged low dial position that had good coverage, plus NBC affiliation and newspaper ownership, and the commission somehow felt that that was enough. Perhaps if it had been relicensed to Kansas City, Kansas, things might have been different since Kansas did not have a class I station and Missouri did (KMOX).
Yet the 1-A and 1-B were not assigned. They were handed out as stations applied for them. That is how Waterloo, IA, got 50 kw on 1540 but Kansas City got no clear channel of either kind. Similarly, tiny Phoenix, AZ, was lucky to get two fairly good facilities on 550 and 620 but neither covers the whole market which is now about to be a top 10 metro area.
1971 Broadcasting Yearbook. Over the years, the more esoteric aspects of FCC rules like Limited Time, nondirectional antenna until the other Class I-B station Sunset, and Class III-A and III-B (very often misunderstood and misquoted, but that's for another discussion), disappeared from the listings. But WCKY shows directional after "LSS-Sacramento, Calif." I'll try an earlier issue to see if there is any other information that wasn't dropped yet.
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KXEL didn't exist until 1942 and was on a Cuban clear channel. So it probably was a II-A. KXEL got the grant because the FCC considered that part of Iowa, Waterloo, to be underserved. Waterloo was an unusually large community not to have had a radio station until then.
Not until 1947 when KCMO moved from 1480 to 810. That definitely was a II-A, protecting both KGO and WGY.
But still no 1-A or 1-B. It would be interesting to see the metro area population of each market that had a true 1 A or B station before, let's say, 1934. And then, the metro areas that had none but which had significant population.
I wonder about markets like Syracuse, NY or Columbus, OH, or even Springfield, MA and Providence, RI.
Not only has there been greater population growth in the West, but many cities also in the East which are now "big" have done massive annexations and county consolidations. So a lot of those cities that some think should have been granted Class Is are not really as significant as they appear.
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By the way, it looks like the I, II, III, and IV classifications came about with regulations revised in 1939 to align with NARBA, though they supplemented existing uses of the terms "clear", "regional", and "local".
Otherwise, as I recall, clear channels were originally allocated on a state-by-state basis. Aside from the exceptional cases of New York and Chicago, this worked to the disadvantage of states with multiple large metropolitan areas. That's why I mention that one of the Kansas City stations could have relicensed to the Kansas side to improve its chances of getting an unobstructed clear channel, since Missouri already had KMOX on the other side of the state. Actually, one Kansas City station did migrate from Missouri to Kansas in the 1930s, but it was on a local channel. There was no practical effect on that station's coverage; it moved about five miles.
Another thing to note is that population redistributed to the West and South after World War II, so there were fewer 50,000-watt facilities in those areas. Houston is a good example of the resulting effects: just one 50,000-watt station and one with a DA that aims toward the Gulf of Mexico. But Houston wasn't that much of a metropolitan area in the 1930s; San Antonio and Dallas were.
But radio has never run its business based on towns and cities, but on "markets".
So we can look at markets like Cleveland, which, prior to the mid-50's was a top 10 metro area, is now 36th and smaller than Cincinnati.
Again, the FCC did not prioritize markets or cities by population back when those original Class 1 assignments were issued. They basically had a first-come system... which remained in place until the auction device was implemented relatively recently.
Indianapolis has never had a full time 1-A / Class A 50 kW station. WIBC 1070 came closest, with 50 kW day and 10 kW night, directional in both cases, from a 1950 upgrade until Emmis shuttered the AM signal (by then WFNI and simulcast on FM) on Aug. 3, 2021. The only 1-A / Class A in Indiana was WOWO 1190 Fort Wayne (also directonal), and we know what happened there.
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