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WSBN
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WSBN
WSBN (630 kHz) is a commercial AM sports radio station licensed to Washington, D.C., and serving the Washington metro area. It operates with 10,000 watts in the daytime and 2,700 watts at night using a directional antenna around the clock. WSBN's studios are on Jenifer Street in Northwest Washington. The transmitter is located off Black Rock Road in Germantown, Maryland.
WSBN is owned and operated by Cumulus Media and is affiliated with ESPN Radio. It is one of the oldest radio stations in the Washington media market, continuously on the air from 1925. For most of its history, the station operated as WMAL; on July 1, 2019, its talk programming was moved exclusively to co-owned WMAL-FM at 105.9 MHz, which had simulcast with 630 am since 2011.
WSBN has two local hosts on weekdays, Andy Pollin in late mornings and Bram Weinstein in afternoon drive time. The rest of the schedule is largely made up of programs from ESPN Radio.
As of 2022, WSBN broadcasts the games of the Baltimore Ravens and Virginia Cavaliers football and men's basketball. It announced on March 24, 2021, that it joined the Baltimore Orioles Radio Network as an affiliate station beginning with the upcoming season.
The station first went on the air, as WMAL, on October 12, 1925, using call letters incorporating the initials of Martin A. Leese, a local optician who began selling radio sets at 720 11th Street NW in Washington, D.C. He started WMAL as a low-power station. The shutdown of station WCAP left Washington with WRC (now WTEM) as its only high-power station, so local business leaders affiliated with the City Club of Washington banded together to create a second high-powered station. Their original plan was to buy WCAP and convert it to a municipal station, but instead they worked with Leese to boost WMAL's signal and make it the city's second large station. The new high-power WMAL went on the air from studios at 710-712 11th Street NW on October 2, 1926, with former WCAP announcer William T. Pierson as director and with a policy of encouraging young broadcasting talent in hopes of creating "a people's forum".
In 1927, Leese left his optical business to focus full-time on running the station, and the following year the Federal Radio Commission's national frequency allocation plan assigned WMAL the AM 630 frequency. WMAL was a CBS Radio Network affiliate from 1928 until October 19, 1932, and then was briefly unaffiliated until joining the NBC Blue Network in January 1933. The Blue Network later became ABC, with which WMAL was affiliated for many years, and which owned WMAL for several decades.
By mid-1932, M. R. Baker had been appointed manager of the station, and Kenneth H. Berkeley was appointed station director of WMAL in 1933. While still owned by the Leese family, WMAL was eventually leased to the National Broadcasting Company in 1934, joining it with owned-and-operated station WRC.
NBC's Washington vice president Frank M. Russell supervised the operation of both WMAL and WRC by 1935 when studios were moved from the National Press Building to the Trans-Lux Theatre Building, 724 14th Street NW. Transmitting facilities continued to be located at 712 Eleventh Street NW.
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WSBN
WSBN (630 kHz) is a commercial AM sports radio station licensed to Washington, D.C., and serving the Washington metro area. It operates with 10,000 watts in the daytime and 2,700 watts at night using a directional antenna around the clock. WSBN's studios are on Jenifer Street in Northwest Washington. The transmitter is located off Black Rock Road in Germantown, Maryland.
WSBN is owned and operated by Cumulus Media and is affiliated with ESPN Radio. It is one of the oldest radio stations in the Washington media market, continuously on the air from 1925. For most of its history, the station operated as WMAL; on July 1, 2019, its talk programming was moved exclusively to co-owned WMAL-FM at 105.9 MHz, which had simulcast with 630 am since 2011.
WSBN has two local hosts on weekdays, Andy Pollin in late mornings and Bram Weinstein in afternoon drive time. The rest of the schedule is largely made up of programs from ESPN Radio.
As of 2022, WSBN broadcasts the games of the Baltimore Ravens and Virginia Cavaliers football and men's basketball. It announced on March 24, 2021, that it joined the Baltimore Orioles Radio Network as an affiliate station beginning with the upcoming season.
The station first went on the air, as WMAL, on October 12, 1925, using call letters incorporating the initials of Martin A. Leese, a local optician who began selling radio sets at 720 11th Street NW in Washington, D.C. He started WMAL as a low-power station. The shutdown of station WCAP left Washington with WRC (now WTEM) as its only high-power station, so local business leaders affiliated with the City Club of Washington banded together to create a second high-powered station. Their original plan was to buy WCAP and convert it to a municipal station, but instead they worked with Leese to boost WMAL's signal and make it the city's second large station. The new high-power WMAL went on the air from studios at 710-712 11th Street NW on October 2, 1926, with former WCAP announcer William T. Pierson as director and with a policy of encouraging young broadcasting talent in hopes of creating "a people's forum".
In 1927, Leese left his optical business to focus full-time on running the station, and the following year the Federal Radio Commission's national frequency allocation plan assigned WMAL the AM 630 frequency. WMAL was a CBS Radio Network affiliate from 1928 until October 19, 1932, and then was briefly unaffiliated until joining the NBC Blue Network in January 1933. The Blue Network later became ABC, with which WMAL was affiliated for many years, and which owned WMAL for several decades.
By mid-1932, M. R. Baker had been appointed manager of the station, and Kenneth H. Berkeley was appointed station director of WMAL in 1933. While still owned by the Leese family, WMAL was eventually leased to the National Broadcasting Company in 1934, joining it with owned-and-operated station WRC.
NBC's Washington vice president Frank M. Russell supervised the operation of both WMAL and WRC by 1935 when studios were moved from the National Press Building to the Trans-Lux Theatre Building, 724 14th Street NW. Transmitting facilities continued to be located at 712 Eleventh Street NW.