WERE

WERE
Cleveland Heights, Ohio; United States;
Broadcast area	Greater Cleveland
Frequency	1490 kHz
Branding	NewsTalk 1490
Programming
Language(s)	English
Format	Urban talk radio
Affiliations	Premiere Networks; Westwood One;
Ownership
Owner	Urban One; (Blue Chip Broadcasting Licenses, Ltd.);
Sister stations	WENZ; WJMO; WZAK;
History
First air date	December 12, 1947
Former call signs	WSRS (1947–59); WJMO (1959–2007);
Call sign meaning	Transferred from the former WERE (1300 AM) in Cleveland, now WJMO
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	74472
Class	C
Power	1,000 watts
Transmitter coordinates	41°30′48.00″N 81°36′5.00″W / 41.5133333°N 81.6013889°W
Repeater(s)	93.1 WZAK-HD3 (Cleveland)
Links
Public license information	Public file; LMS;
Webcast	Listen live; Listen live (via TuneIn);
Website	newstalkcleveland.com

WERE (1490 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to serve Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and carrying an urban talk radio format known as "NewsTalk 1490". Owned by Urban One, the station serves the Greater Cleveland region. WERE is one of two Cleveland-area stations that carries The Rickey Smiley Morning Show,^[2] syndicated personalities Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and is the Cleveland affiliate for Red Eye Radio. Since 2008, an emphasis has been placed on brokered programming.^[3]

Built and launched in 1947 as WSRS, a suburban station focused on Cleveland Heights proper, this station became the second in the Cleveland market to use the WJMO call sign in 1959. During this period, WJMO carried a rhythm and blues/soul music format continuously from 1959 to 1999, reputedly longer than any other such station in the United States,^[4] and was one of the first major-market radio stations to have an African-American serve as their general manager. At the same time, a number of legal issues surrounding owner United Broadcasting, repeated technical violations committed, strained relations between station management and the station's staff and audience, and a controversial ownership transfer in 1992 attracted criticism and scrutiny by the public, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), at one point putting the station's broadcast license in question. A series of ownership buyouts in the late 1990s saw the station adopt an urban gospel format, then come under control of Radio One (now Urban One); a 2007 format swap resulted in 1490 AM picking up the format and calls of WERE from 1300 AM, which it has maintained to the present day.

WERE's studios are located along the Euclid Avenue Corridor on Cleveland's east side, while the station transmitter resides near University Circle, adjacent to the Case Western Reserve University campus. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WERE's programming is available online and simulcast on the HD digital subchannel of co-owned WZAK.

^ "Facility Technical Data for WERE". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
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[1] "Facility Technical Data for WERE". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.

[CPD20200101pP1-2] Cite error: The named reference CPD20200101pP1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[CPD20080127pJ7-3] Cite error: The named reference CPD20080127pJ7 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[WJMOrnb-4] Cite error: The named reference WJMOrnb was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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