WFED
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| WFED | |
| City of license | Silver Spring, Maryland |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Washington, D.C. |
| Branding | 1050 AM Federal News Radio |
| Frequency | 1050 kHz (Also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | December 13, 2004 1947 as WGAY |
| Format | News |
| Power | 3,500 watts (daytime) 44 watts (nighttime) |
| Class | D |
| Facility ID | 8673 |
| Callsign meaning | FEDeral News Radio |
| Former callsigns | WPLC (2000-2004) WKDL (1993-2000) WNTR (1984-1993) WGAY (1980-1984) WQMR (1960-1980) WGAY (1947-1960) |
| Affiliations | WTOP CNN Headline News |
| Owner | Bonneville International |
| Sister stations | WTOP/WTLP, WWWT/WWWT-FM/WWWB, WPRS-FM (sale pending to Radio One) |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | www.federalnewsradio.com |
WFED is a radio station broadcasting on 1050 kHz in the mediumwave AM band. Its transmitter is located in Silver Spring, Maryland, and its studios are located in the Bonneville International Corp broadcast complex in northwest Washington, DC. The station serves the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. WFED is currently owned by Bonneville International, which also owns Washington radio station WTOP.
The current format of WFED is news and talk aimed at employees of the United States Federal Government. In 2005, the station also carried games of the Washington Nationals baseball team; these game broadcasts were switched to sister Bonneville station, WWWT, the following year. WFED is the English language flagship station for D.C. United soccer. The station also airs Navy football plus select Navy men's basketball and lacrosse games.
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[edit] History
The original call letters on this frequency were WGAY, a station that played a "beautiful music" format. It was believed that WGAY was named for its owner, Connie B. Gay, though it was merely coincidental. Back when the term connoted a "bright and gay" happy sound, WGAY was a "beautiful music" station. However, Gay bought the station in the late 1950's/early 1960's.
The owners and operators, Ed Winton and Bob Chandler, are credited with creating the "beautiful music" format, which was mostly instrumental music, with orchestral covers of showtunes, soundtrack excerpts, and standard popular songs. Chandler was known to arrange for recording of music that he did not have in the station's library. In addition, on Sunday afternoons at 1:00 p.m., Matinee at One played a complete Broadway show soundtrack with an explanation of the plot.
Despite its sobriquet of "elevator music", WGAY was popular, and was soon sold to Connie B. Gay. On February 1, 1960, the WGAY calls were moved to the FM band at 99.5 mHz, while the AM station became WQMR, for "Washington's Quality Music Radio." WGAY initially operated as an experimental country music station (Gay was a country and western music promoter) but started simulcasting WQMR fulltime around 1961.
These simulcasts would usually end nightly at sunset when WQMR had to sign off as required by the FCC, and WGAY was rarely mentioned on the air or in advertisements. WQMR soon increased in power from 1000 watts on the AM band, while WGAY would upgrade and 20 kW monophonic on the low power FM band to 50 kW FM stereo. Both WQMR and WGAY moved to the World Building, located on Georgia Avenue, just north of the intersection of Maryland 410 (East-West-Highway) in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1966.
This simulcast arrangement continued well into the 1980s, even with WQMR reverting back to WGAY. Winton and Chandler sold the station on September 1, 1984 to Greater Media, Inc., which in turn ended the simulcast and changed the call letters to WNTR. (The WGAY calls and format afterward were maintained on the FM band on 99.5 MHz, which is now WIHT.) Greater Media then bought radio station WRC (AM) from NBC Radio and then sold WNTR to TM Productions of Dallas.
Later, it was sold to Pat Robertson, the televangelist and founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who used WNTR as the anchor of a conservative talk-radio network dubbed "The News Talk Radio Network". WNTR was also the first station to carry Rush Limbaugh in Washington, before he moved to WMAL. This ended when the World Building studios caught on fire.[1] However, Robertson's company continued to run the station from another building in Silver Spring, Maryland for a while, as part of his network and later in a brokered-program format. In the early 1990s, it was sold to Disney. (The WNTR call letters are now in use by an FM station in Indianapolis.)
Under Disney's ownership, the station was called WKDL as a simulcast with WKDV in Manassas, Virginia, playing a format of children's programming. However, the network did not succeed. Metro Radio then bought the station, and switched WKDL to a Spanish-language format. When that did not succeed, it briefly carried the Genesis Radio Network of conservative talk and then operated it as WPLC "Business Radio" for a short period. Bonneville then bought the station in 2004 and converted the station to WFED "Federal News Radio" airing news and talk programming aimed at Federal government employees.
The format itself was hardly new as Bonneville lauched it as the first Internet-only all news station, FederalNewsRadio.com, on February 22, 2000. It had run Associated Press' All News Radio in the overnight hours, but when AP All News Radio was terminated, the station began an affiliation with CNN Headline News. That service, too, is being phased out as of 2007.
In November of 2007 the station increased its daytime power from 1kW to 3.5kW, pending final FCC approval, in order to better reach the government office workers in Washington, D.C. who comprise its core audience.
WFED continues to carry original news and talk content for Federal government employees, the Senior Executive Service, and contractors.
[edit] Cully Stimson controversy
On January 11, 2007, while being interviewed on WFED's morning program The Federal Drive, then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Charles "Cully" Stimson criticized some major U.S. law firms for representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay free of charge. Stimson further suggested that U.S. corporations who retained these same U.S. law firms should reconsider their associations with those firms. His comments drew immediate criticism from legal scholars, professional legal associations and the ACLU, and even the Pentagon itself sought to distance itself and the Bush administration from Stimson's comments. Although he apologized a few days later, on February 2, 2007 Stimson resigned his position with the Pentagon, saying he believed the flap would prevent him from effectively doing his job. The controversy broadened the reputation of Federal News Radio, however, as the station's morning hosts and reporters were interviewed by news organizations around the world about the controversy.[2][3]
[edit] Program schedule
- This information is current as of the November 2007:
Monday-Friday:
- 12 a.m.-5 a.m.: Replay of WFED programming
- 5 a.m.-6 a.m.: America in the Morning with Jim Bohannon
- 6 a.m.-10 a.m.: The Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Jane Norris
- 10 a.m.-3 p.m.: Assorted WFED programming, including a replay of The Federal Drive
- 3 p.m.-5 p.m.: The Daily Debrief with Amy Morris
- 5 p.m.-6 p.m.: Replay of The Federal Drive
- 6 p.m.-7 p.m.: Dateline Washington with Greg Corombos (from the Radio America network)
- 7 p.m.-12 a.m.: Replay of WFED programming or sports
Saturdays and Sundays WFED features brokered programming and replays of weekday programming, plus selected Navy football, basketball and lacrosse games in season.
[edit] References
- ^ The Washington Post, February 2, 2007
- ^ "Pentagon Official Who Criticized Detainee Lawyers Quits", Washington Post, February 7, 2007, p. A06.
- ^ "'Cully' Stimson Stepping Down", Federal News Radio, February 2, 2007.
[edit] External links
- WFED Website
- Query the FCC's AM station database for WFED
- Radio Locator Information on WFED
- Query Arbitron's AM station database for WFED
- http://www.wqmrwgaymemories.org - more information on WGAY
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