WIST (AM)

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WIST is an all talk station based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The locally owned & operated station (WTIX, Inc, owned by George H. Buck) is an affiliate of Fox News Radio and broadcasts at 690 kHz with an ERP of 10 kW-Daytime/5 kW-Nighttime.

The facilities of the station, previously called WTIX, were severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005. The station had the target date to resume broadcasting on 1 December, and in November requested the new letters. A sports talk station in Florence, South Carolina later claimed the WTIX call letters, which are now used by a Winston-Salem, North Carolina station.

[edit] History

WTIX-AM, who was originally at 1450 until 1958, was a very successful Top 40 powerhouse throughout the 1960s and 1970s owned by Todd Storz's Mid-Continent Broadcasting Company. In 1954 WTIX was the first radio station to air a Top 40 radio show. The program director who developed the format was William L. Armstrong who later served as a U. S. Senator from Colorado. Generations of New Orleanians were familiar with their signature call jingle "WTIX, We Love You," and the station was referred to as, "Fun-Lovin' WTIX, The Mighty 690!" Famed jockeys on The Mighty 690 during its heyday included The Real Robert Mitchell, Buzz Bennett, Deane Johnson, Marc Sommers, "Skinny" Tom Cheney, Michael Green, Chuck Kirr, Hot Rod Glenn, The Real Dan McKay, Bobby Reno, "King" Bob Walker, "TK" Terry Knight, Ed Clancy and Don Anthony. (Hot Rod, Reno, Knight and Walker would later DJ for WTIX-FM.)

In the early 1980s (which saw WTIX-AM's decline due to FM radio fast becoming the norm), they shifted to a hybrid Talk/Oldies format, which would last until April 1988, when they dropped the Oldies format to go All-Talk. The exception to the talk format was 4 hours each Sunday, which owner George Buck reserves for two of his passions, playing 2 hours of dixieland jazz and swing music, followed by two hours rebroadcasting transcriptions of old time radio shows, which Buck himself announced from a studio in his French Quarter home via a line to the station's main studio.

Previous notable WTIX talk radio hosts include Ron Hunter, Robert Namer, and long time radio personality Keith Rush.

At one time, in the 1980s, there was a weekly call-in talk show hosted by former prefession wrestler Buck "Yellow Belly" Robley. The topics were about professional wrestling.

[edit] External links

• WIST's website
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WIST

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