WTAM

WTAM (1100 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, that airs 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.

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 entrepreneur Nick Mileti in 1972, WKYC became "3WE" WWWE, 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.

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 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 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". 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 This Morning with Gordon Deal, 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.

WTAM began broadcast operations on September 26, 1923. It was one of several stations that started between 1922 and 1923 with a call sign assigned sequentially by the Commerce Department with "W" as the first letter and "A" as the third. It was originally owned by S.E. Lawrence and Theodore Willard, in the name of the Willard Storage Battery Company. Initially the station only offered three hours of nightly programming, but soon expanded its on-air lineup. Studios were located in the Willard factory on Taft Avenue at East 131st Street. By June 30, 1924, WTAM was broadcasting with 1,000 watts and sharing the 770 kHz frequency with WJAX.

WJAX had signed on earlier in 1922, owned by the Union Trust Co. In 1924 it was known as the "Wave from Lake Erie". The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company purchased WJAX in 1925 and changed to the callsign to WEAR. Finally, Willard Battery purchased WEAR to have control of shared frequency allocation.

WTAM was the first radio station to broadcast coverage of a political convention when it covered the 1924 Republican National Convention at Cleveland's Public Auditorium from June 10–12, 1924. The station's power increased to 2,500 watts in 1925 and to 3,500 watts in 1926, as the studios moved to the Union Trust Building (now The 925 Building). By June 30, 1927, WTAM and WEAR broadcast on 750 kHz with WTAM broadcasting with 3,500 watts. The January 31, 1928, Radio Service Bulletin of the Commerce Department listed WTAM broadcasting with 3,500 watts at night and 5,000 watts during the day.

After Willard Battery threatened to close the station, WTAM and WEAR were purchased by the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (now part of FirstEnergy) and the Van Sweringen brothers on May 31, 1928. In a statement announcing the purchase, the new owners declared, "Recognizing the fact that this radio station is a civic asset to the Greater Cleveland district and that the cessation of its operation would be a real loss, the Van Sweringen interests and the Illuminating Co. entered into arrangements to continue it. Every effort will be made to maintain the station on a plane which will make it of maximum value to the community."