WTMJ (AM)

WTMJ (620 kHz) is a commercial radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Owned by Good Karma Brands, the station has a news/talk radio format. Its sign-on dates back to 1922 and for most of its history it was owned by The Milwaukee Journal newspaper. On weekdays, it airs news blocks during drive time, local talk shows in middays, sports in the evening and syndicated shows in late nights. It is the flagship station for Milwaukee Brewers baseball and Milwaukee Bucks basketball.

By day, it transmits 50,000 watts, the maximum for AM radio stations in the United States. At night, to avoid interference to other stations, it reduces power to 10,000 watts. In addition, it broadcasts on 250-watt FM translator W277CV at 103.3 MHz.

The station was first licensed, with the sequentially assigned call letters WCAY, on May 15, 1922. It was owned by the Kesselman O'Driscoll Company, a music house located at 517–519 Grand Avenue (now Wisconsin Avenue) in Milwaukee. It was initially authorized to broadcast on the "entertainment" wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz). On May 24, 1923, WCAY was reassigned to 1150 kHz. The next year ownership was transferred to the Milwaukee Civic Broadcasting Association.

The station license was briefly allowed to lapse in 1925, but it was quickly relicensed as WKAF to the WKAF Broadcasting Co., located at 130 Second Street. The station was now jointly owned by Kesselman-O'Driscoll Co., the Hotel Antlers (the studio location), and station engineer H. L. Ford. WKAF's first regular broadcast was held on October 20, 1925.

On April 20, 1927, WKAF was purchased by The Milwaukee Journal for $16,350. The Journal changed the call sign to WTMJ on May 10 to reflect the newspaper's name. Station facilities were upgraded, including the building of a new transmitter site in Brookfield, west of Milwaukee. The new WTMJ also affiliated with the NBC Red Network.

The Journal already had extensive experience with radio broadcasting. On May 1, 1922, it had sponsored the debut program on WAAK, Milwaukee's first radio station, which was owned by the local division of the Gimbel's department store chain. On January 24, 1925, the newspaper entered into an agreement as a joint, and dominant, partner in the operation of Marquette University's station, WHAD, which limited the university's programming to just one and one-half-hour on Friday evenings. The newspaper's operations at WHAD ended on August 15, 1927, with the university returning to full responsibility for the station. WTMJ aired a full service format featuring a mixture of music, news, talk and local personalities along with sports play-by-play, as well as dramas, comedies and other programs from NBC.

WTMJ made its debut broadcast on July 25, 1927. That day's broadcast featured music by the WTMJ Orchestra and included a remote broadcast featuring Bill Carlsen's orchestra. (Carlsen was later hired by WTMJ and went on to become Wisconsin's most widely known radio and television weather forecaster.) On September 11, 1927, WTMJ was assigned to 1020 kHz. WTMJ also began broadcasting University of Wisconsin Badgers football games that year.

On November 11, 1928, as part of a major nationwide allocation under the provisions of the Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, WTMJ was reassigned to its current frequency of 620 kHz. In November 1929, WTMJ broadcast a Green Bay Packers game for the first time.