WTAM

WTAM

Cleveland, Ohio United States
Broadcast area	Greater Cleveland Northeast Ohio
Frequency	1100 kHz
Branding	Newsradio WTAM 1100
Programming
Language(s)	English
Format	News/talk–sports radio
Affiliations	ABC News Radio Fox News Radio Fox Sports Radio Premiere Networks Cavaliers AudioVerse Cleveland Guardians Radio Network Cleveland State Vikings
Ownership
Owner	iHeartMedia, Inc. (iHM Licenses, LLC)
Sister stations	WAKS (HD2) WARF WGAR-FM WHLK WMJI WMMS (HD2)
History
First air date	September 26, 1923 (100 years ago) (1923-09-26)
Former call signs	KYW (1956–1965) WKYC (1965–1972) WWWE (1972–1996)
Former frequencies	750 kHz (1923–1926) 770 kHz (1926–1927) 1070 kHz (1927–1941)
Call sign meaning	AM band[1]
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	59595
Class	A
Power	50,000 watts unlimited
Transmitter coordinates	41°16′50.2″N 81°37′21.44″W / 41.280611°N 81.6226222°W / 41.280611; -81.6226222
Translator(s)	106.9 W295DE (Cleveland)
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Webcast	Listen live (via iHeartRadio)
Website	wtam.iheart.com

WTAM (1100 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, United States, and carries a news/talk and sports radio format commonly known as "Newsradio WTAM 1100". Owned by iHeartMedia, WTAM serves Greater Cleveland and much of surrounding Northeast Ohio, and is a clear-channel station with extended nighttime range. WTAM is also Northeast Ohio's primary entry point station in the Emergency Alert System.^[3]

The station first carried the WTAM call letters from 1923 to 1956; assigned sequentially by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the letters were later treated as a backronym for "Where The Artisans Meet". Founded by Willard Storage Battery and later owned by Cleveland Electric Illuminating and the Van Sweringen brothers as the 1920s ended, WTAM was purchased by RCA in 1930, becoming a core station in the NBC Radio Network. NBC sold WTAM, FM adjunct WTAM-FM (105.7) and TV adjunct WNBK (channel 3), to Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1956 in exchange for their AM and TV stations in Philadelphia, whereupon the Cleveland properties assumed the KYW calls. That sale was ultimately reversed in 1965, with NBC returning and all three Cleveland stations renamed as WKYC. Sold to Cleveland entrepreneurs Nick Mileti & Tom Embrescia in 1972, WKYC became "3WE" WWWE, The "E" stood for Embrescia, carrying a mixture of middle of the road and sports play-by-play, in particular the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Cavaliers and Pete Franklin's Sportsline talk show.

WWWE was sold in 1976 to Combined Communications for $6,000,000.

The station adopted its current talk radio format in 1985 after being purchased by a syndicate headed by Art Modell and Al Lerner; a subsequent sale to Indpendent Group Ltd. for $12,000,000 which included the sale of WDOK FM, owned by Tom Embrescia, Tom Wilson and Larry Pollock, took WWWE's talk programming into a controversial direction with Gary Dee and Bruce Drennan, at one point putting the station's license into question. Booth American (later Secret Communications) took over WWWE only for $12,000,000 plus the 850 Am frequency, now ESPN radio, in 1990, revamping the lineup several times and hiring Mike Trivisonno as Sportsline host in 1994, later moving him to afternoon drive to much success. WWWE re-adopted the WTAM call letters in 1996 to reinforce the station's position on the AM band; station management considered the historical tie "a nice bonus, but... more incidental than anything else".^[1] Purchased by Jacor in 1997, WTAM has been owned by Clear Channel since 1999, renamed iHeartMedia in 2014.

WTAM is the Cleveland affiliate for both ABC News Radio and Fox News Radio; the AM flagship for the Cavaliers AudioVerse and Cleveland Guardians Radio Network; and the market outlet for The Glenn Beck Program, The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show and Coast to Coast AM. Studios for WTAM are located in the Six Six Eight Building in downtown Cleveland's Gateway District and the transmitter is located south of Cleveland in Brecksville. Besides its main analog transmission, WTAM simulcasts over low-power analog Cleveland translator W295DE (106.9 FM), and streams online via iHeartRadio.