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WLOK
WLOK (1340 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Memphis, Tennessee, carrying a gospel music format. Owned by the Gilliam family doing business as WLOK Radio, Inc., the station serves the Memphis metropolitan area. WLOK's studios are located in Downtown Memphis and the transmitter resides in Memphis's Glenview Historic District. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WLOK is relayed over low-power Memphis translator W285FI (104.9 FM) and is available online.
WLOK operates on the fifth-oldest radio license in Memphis, which dates to 1946 as WHHM. One of the city's first personality-oriented stations, WHHM remained on the air through December 1962, when it was taken off the air amid a financial crisis and a disputed sale. It remained silent for more than a year before it was sold out of bankruptcy to the OK Group, which had operated Black-oriented WLOK at 1480 kHz from 1956 to 1964. WLOK and its programming moved to 1340 kHz on the former WHHM license in 1964, allowing it to broadcast with more power and at night for the first time. In 1977, the station became the first Black-owned radio station in Memphis under Gilliam Communications ownership, adopting its present gospel format in 1985.
On August 14, 1945, Herbert Herff applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a construction permit to build a new radio station to broadcast with 250 watts on 1340 kHz in Memphis. It was the second time Herff, a local auto dealer, had filed for a radio station that year; in January, he applied for an FM station at 45.3 MHz. The FM station was approved in November 1945, and the FCC approved the AM station permit on February 13, 1946. Construction immediately began on facilities to house the AM and FM stations in the Sterick Building, which would also be the location of the FM transmitter; the AM station would broadcast its signal from a site at Somerville and Ryder streets.
WHHM, the fifth radio station in Memphis, formally debuted July 29, 1946, with a two-hour-long opening program. (The call letters either represented the car dealership, Herbert Herff Motors, or the city, Herbert Herff/Memphis.) The Sterick Building facilities contained two studios, one of them 20 by 32 feet, as well as offices and a newsroom.
Herff owned the station for 14 months before selling the AM and the still-unbuilt FM to Mid-South Broadcasting Company, headed by Prentis Furlow, owner of KTBS in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1947 for $300,000. The AM facility was moved to 46 Neely Street in 1949, and the FM station on 106.9 MHz was on test by the start of 1950, being briefly used in an emergency to feed WMCF during an ice storm in the first week of January. The transmitter used had previously belonged to WMCF. The FM briefly attempted separate programming in 1951 before being turned off on July 1 due to a "lack of enthusiasm" for the FM programming, which had been a financial failure.
After four years of independent operation, WHHM joined the Liberty Broadcasting System in 1950. The station had several notable DJs at this time, including big band vocalist Kenny Sargent and Ron Lundy, who got his first on-air work when the normal DJ failed to show for his shift and later went on to work at WABC in New York. It was one of the first local stations to focus on popular DJs and personalities, though in the mid-1950s increased competition began to dim the success the station enjoyed with this formula. WHHM moved to studios on Madison Avenue in 1957, vacating the Sterick Building studios, which were leased to Southern Bell.
WHHM was sold by Mid-South Broadcasting to Cy Blumenthal of Arlington, Virginia, in 1958. Blumenthal's chain of stations all aired country music formats, but Memphis presented a programming puzzle. The radio stations in town already served a wide variety of market segments, and KWEM (990 AM) covered the country format. A year later, Blumenthal sold WHHM to Thomas W. Shipp, a Jax Beer distributor with no other radio holdings. Shipp was able to rebound the station's ratings somewhat, though he also was confronted with a task of reconstruction. The Russwood Park fire, a five-alarm blaze in April 1960, destroyed the baseball stadium as well as the nearby WHHM studios and a bank branch, causing an estimated $1 million in damage. The fire nearly trapped the on-air announcer and his guest, who fled the burning station after black smoke entered the studio. Broadcasting shifted to the station's transmitter site, which had moved back to the Somerville Street site in 1954, before new studios opened in July in the Holiday Towers building. A dispute over covered losses escalated into litigation when Shipp sued the Agricultural Insurance Company, based in Watertown, New York, in a case that centered on the value of the radio station's lost record library and jingles. In April 1962, a federal jury awarded Shipp more than $74,000 in the case.
Shipp sold WHHM in August 1960 to Bill Grumbles, doing business as Mercury Broadcasting. Grumbles formerly had been a vice president of RKO Teleradio, owner in Memphis of WHBQ-AM-FM-TV, before cutting ties and searching for a station to own himself. Upon taking over in November, Grumbles replaced all the disc jockeys with a new airstaff, consisting mostly of former Memphians returning from other cities; he also changed the operation so that all music was played from cartridges instead of records. The station also increased daytime power to 1,000 watts in November 1962.
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WLOK
WLOK (1340 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Memphis, Tennessee, carrying a gospel music format. Owned by the Gilliam family doing business as WLOK Radio, Inc., the station serves the Memphis metropolitan area. WLOK's studios are located in Downtown Memphis and the transmitter resides in Memphis's Glenview Historic District. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WLOK is relayed over low-power Memphis translator W285FI (104.9 FM) and is available online.
WLOK operates on the fifth-oldest radio license in Memphis, which dates to 1946 as WHHM. One of the city's first personality-oriented stations, WHHM remained on the air through December 1962, when it was taken off the air amid a financial crisis and a disputed sale. It remained silent for more than a year before it was sold out of bankruptcy to the OK Group, which had operated Black-oriented WLOK at 1480 kHz from 1956 to 1964. WLOK and its programming moved to 1340 kHz on the former WHHM license in 1964, allowing it to broadcast with more power and at night for the first time. In 1977, the station became the first Black-owned radio station in Memphis under Gilliam Communications ownership, adopting its present gospel format in 1985.
On August 14, 1945, Herbert Herff applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a construction permit to build a new radio station to broadcast with 250 watts on 1340 kHz in Memphis. It was the second time Herff, a local auto dealer, had filed for a radio station that year; in January, he applied for an FM station at 45.3 MHz. The FM station was approved in November 1945, and the FCC approved the AM station permit on February 13, 1946. Construction immediately began on facilities to house the AM and FM stations in the Sterick Building, which would also be the location of the FM transmitter; the AM station would broadcast its signal from a site at Somerville and Ryder streets.
WHHM, the fifth radio station in Memphis, formally debuted July 29, 1946, with a two-hour-long opening program. (The call letters either represented the car dealership, Herbert Herff Motors, or the city, Herbert Herff/Memphis.) The Sterick Building facilities contained two studios, one of them 20 by 32 feet, as well as offices and a newsroom.
Herff owned the station for 14 months before selling the AM and the still-unbuilt FM to Mid-South Broadcasting Company, headed by Prentis Furlow, owner of KTBS in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1947 for $300,000. The AM facility was moved to 46 Neely Street in 1949, and the FM station on 106.9 MHz was on test by the start of 1950, being briefly used in an emergency to feed WMCF during an ice storm in the first week of January. The transmitter used had previously belonged to WMCF. The FM briefly attempted separate programming in 1951 before being turned off on July 1 due to a "lack of enthusiasm" for the FM programming, which had been a financial failure.
After four years of independent operation, WHHM joined the Liberty Broadcasting System in 1950. The station had several notable DJs at this time, including big band vocalist Kenny Sargent and Ron Lundy, who got his first on-air work when the normal DJ failed to show for his shift and later went on to work at WABC in New York. It was one of the first local stations to focus on popular DJs and personalities, though in the mid-1950s increased competition began to dim the success the station enjoyed with this formula. WHHM moved to studios on Madison Avenue in 1957, vacating the Sterick Building studios, which were leased to Southern Bell.
WHHM was sold by Mid-South Broadcasting to Cy Blumenthal of Arlington, Virginia, in 1958. Blumenthal's chain of stations all aired country music formats, but Memphis presented a programming puzzle. The radio stations in town already served a wide variety of market segments, and KWEM (990 AM) covered the country format. A year later, Blumenthal sold WHHM to Thomas W. Shipp, a Jax Beer distributor with no other radio holdings. Shipp was able to rebound the station's ratings somewhat, though he also was confronted with a task of reconstruction. The Russwood Park fire, a five-alarm blaze in April 1960, destroyed the baseball stadium as well as the nearby WHHM studios and a bank branch, causing an estimated $1 million in damage. The fire nearly trapped the on-air announcer and his guest, who fled the burning station after black smoke entered the studio. Broadcasting shifted to the station's transmitter site, which had moved back to the Somerville Street site in 1954, before new studios opened in July in the Holiday Towers building. A dispute over covered losses escalated into litigation when Shipp sued the Agricultural Insurance Company, based in Watertown, New York, in a case that centered on the value of the radio station's lost record library and jingles. In April 1962, a federal jury awarded Shipp more than $74,000 in the case.
Shipp sold WHHM in August 1960 to Bill Grumbles, doing business as Mercury Broadcasting. Grumbles formerly had been a vice president of RKO Teleradio, owner in Memphis of WHBQ-AM-FM-TV, before cutting ties and searching for a station to own himself. Upon taking over in November, Grumbles replaced all the disc jockeys with a new airstaff, consisting mostly of former Memphians returning from other cities; he also changed the operation so that all music was played from cartridges instead of records. The station also increased daytime power to 1,000 watts in November 1962.