The Story of WJR
Thanks to Marconi and Edison, radios debuted in 1896. Although early transmissions were crude at best, radio attracted the public's interest. In 1919, the Radio Corporation of America was founded; its main purpose was sending messages over the airwaves. It didn't take long for people to see radio's potential. By the end of 1922, more that 550 licensed radio stations nationwide reached an estimated 1.5 million listeners with news, lectures, and entertainment.
Early reception was often tinny, signals were sometimes garbled, and if an emergency, such as a ship in distress occurred, stations would shut down to clear the frequency for transmission of vital information. Radio receivers were expensive and radios with loudspeakers were not yet in production.
A newspaper rivalry started WJR. In 1920 The Detroit News was the first area newspaper to put its own station, WWJ, on the air. Detroit Free Press owner and publisher E. D. Stair, pressured to keep up with his competitor, grudgingly installed a transmitter and studio in his building in 1922 with the call letters WCX, WJR's precursor.
On May 4, 1922, from a studio located on the 9th floor of the Free Press Building, WCX became known as "The Call of the Motor City" operating on the dial at 580. Opening with a bang, Governor Alexander Groesbeck and University of Michigan's President, Marion Burton, addressed the radio audience as a trio of flute, oboe and clarinet was accompanied by a piano. Poet Edgar Guest recited verse with his son, Bud Guest, at his side.
Although the station received congratulatory telegrams from as far away as Chicago, Grand Rapids, Texas, and Arkansas, the program couldn't be heard at owner Stair's house. Although his dwelling, near the Belle Isle Bridge, was within sight of the antenna, it stood in a dead spot, where an earphone set couldn't pick up the station's signals.
A 15x15 foot room, with the walls and ceiling lined with monk's cloth, became WCX's studio. Its slanting antenna was strung from the Free Press's roof to the roof of the nearby Dime Building. For a while, workers in the Dime Building listened to the radio through their telephones, which could not be used for calls during broadcast times until adjustments were made.
For a short time WCX, and its rival, WWJ, shared a single wavelength due to a federal requirement. Assigning more than one station to a wavelength was common during radio's early days. Some stations even had "silent nights," when a station gave up its spot on the dial to another station, sometimes located hundreds of miles away.
In the days before networks, records weren't played on the air; broadcasters believed listeners wanted live entertainment. Threatened by the new medium, some theater owners inserted a "no-broadcast" clause into each performer's contract. But that didn't stop the growth of Detroit's newest station. Its first manager, C.D. Neal Tomy, broke ranks with the era's typical broadcasting style in late November 1923, when he not only introduced the entertainers for a popular evening variety show, but he described the gowns worn by the featured singers, the Stickles Sisters. He also talked informally with the group leaders and hummed along with the tunes. Tomy then challenged his listening audience to identify another singing guest, Bartlett Holmes, by offering a "nice red apple" to the first person who called in with the correct answer. The station received hundreds of complimentary letters the following week and The Red Apple Club was born. Membership in the lighthearted club grew to five hundred thousand listeners coast-to-coast. The show was so popular that it eventually became the daily Luncheon Song Review.
On August 16, 1925, Pontiac's Jewett Radio and Phonographic Company officially took over the station, moving it to the Book-Cadillac Hotel. Jewett ordered a 5,000-watt transmitter, which could reach three times as far as the 517-watt old one. The station then became WCX/WJR ("JR" stands for Jewett Radio). For the next 2 1/2 years WCX broadcast news, sports, and The Red Apple Club; WJR aired commercial programs.
On December 20, 1926, WCX's licensee name was changed to WJR Incorporated, and was jointly owned by the "Detroit Free Press" and the Jewett Radio and Phonograph Company. It also moved from 580 to 680 on the dial.
In hopes of increasing sales of his radios, Jewett hired Leo J. Fitzpatrick, a popular personality in Kansas. When this failed, Jewett's business collapsed and the station was operated by Stroud and Company. Then along came G.A. Richards, president of Pontiac Automobiles for Southern Michigan. He bought the newspaper's interest in the station in December of 1926, and constructed a street-level studio in his showroom on the Cass Avenue side of the General Motors Building. It was the only station in the world to operate a ground-floor studio, making entertainers clearly visible to passersby. WJR's new air slogan was "The Goodwill Station". Later, Richards would also own the Detroit Lions from 1934 to 1939.
Although Richards lived in California, he demanded perfection of his Detroit radio station. Former WJR music librarian Harold Lake recalls, when during a trip from the train station in Detroit, Richards noticed weeds growing beneath a large WJR Billboard and ordered his chauffeur to stop at a nearby house with a finely manicured lawn. To everyone's amazement, Richards bought enough of the homeowner's lawn to replace the billboard's weeds.
In 1927, WJR broadcast Charles A. Lindbergh's triumphant return from his Trans-Atlantic flight. It also scheduled the first radio program from the Michigan Theatre's stage. WJR also broadcast a creative program at the Detroit Air Olympics at Ford Airport (now the Ford test track) in Dearborn. There musicians broadcast from a Ford Tri-Motor plane as Charles Dornberger played the saxophone and Perry Dring played his banjo.
The Federal Radio Commission revamped the entire broadcasting band in 1928. WCX/WJR became the highest-powered station in Michigan and moved to 750 on the dial. In December 1928 WJR physically separated from WCX. The station installed studios on the 28th floor of the new Fisher Building for a token rental fee and the regular on-air mention of its location. The station later relocated to the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd floors.
On April 17, 1929, WJR offered to buy all of WCX's equipment and WCX went permanently off the air. As Detroit became one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, WJR grew with it. WJR continued to broadcast from "The Golden Tower", increasing its power from five to ten thousand watts in 1932. During the 1930s, WJR began producing quality feature productions. Detroit Police Drama was based on actual crimes. The Seven-Day Trial of Vivienne Ware featured Judge John Brennan overseeing a trial, and then basing his verdict and sentence on the number of guilty and not-guilty votes sent in by listeners. A $250 prize was awarded to the person who wrote the best letter supporting his/her verdict. Radio dramas were attractive to the station because of low production costs. A cast of fifteen would work during the 1930s for five dollars a program.
The station switched from NBC to CBS in 1935 and constructed a fifty-thousand-watt transmitter in Riverview, 16 miles south of Detroit (the 733-foot tower later fell in November of 1940 due to strong winds and was replaced with a 700-foot tower).
According to Tomy, sponsors for morning-show broadcasts before the mid-1930s were hard to obtain because "they didn't have loudspeakers in those days, and a woman couldn't do her housework while wearing earphones." Once loudspeakers were introduced, morning time became exceedingly valuable, second only to the choice hours of 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. "Women do most of the buying and therefore are the persons sponsors want to reach," Tomy said in a 1937 Detroit Free Press article.
The war years brought about changes in the WJR programming schedule. In 1944, WJR created six hundred special programs devoted to the war effort. One featured a panel with George Romney discussing the war. In 1942 The Wilson Family series portrayed how a family coped on the home front during World War II. Navy Notes honored Michigan's servicemen, and Selfridge Salute spotlighted talented military personnel at the Mt. Clemens air force base.
On March 29, 1941, WJR moved again on the dial from 750 to 760 where it was finally able to rest to this day, and in 1942, WJR operated 24 hours a day.
By the end of the 1950's, WJR developed an intensive news schedule. The station produced eight, five minute daily newscasts, as well as five minute network news summaries throughout the day. By 1959 WJR broke with CBS and local programs took over.
Over the years, WJR programs won both large audiences and prestigious awards. WJR won a Peabody award for a lengthy investigation that freed a man unjustly imprisoned for murder.
On December 30, 1962, CBS and WJR merged again. CBS, needing WJR's large audiences, agreed to let WJR censor any network advertisements and programs. Such unprecedented freedom allowed WJR to be the only CBS station in America that didn't broadcast Arthur Godfrey's show live, since it aired at the same time WJR's premier program, "Adventures in Good Music". One of the most celebrated educational programs during the 1960s was the award winning "Kaleidoscope", a blend of recorded music and dramatic narrative on a particular topic. Host Mike Whorf's extensive library contributed to the program.
WJR was sold by the Goodwill Station Inc. to Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation on September 9, 1964. WJR's air slogan became "The Great Voice of the Great Lakes," which is still in use today, some forty years later.
On January 1, 1976, WJR dropped CBS and joined the NBC Radio Network. This lasted until the Spring of 1985, when the station switched to the ABC Information Network due to a merger of Capital Cities and ABC.
On February 9, 1996, Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was purchased by the Walt Disney Company. Included with the purchase of WJR was WHYT (now WDVD), WDRQ, and the other ABC-owned AM, FM and TV stations in the United States as well as its radio and television networks.
On September 18, 2000, the final broadcast aired from Studio D, located on the 22nd floor of the Fisher Building. This had been the home to numerous WJR personalities for almost 15 years, including the late J.P. McCarthy. Gene Fogel holds the distinction of being the first voice heard from WJR's current facilities on the eighth floor of the Fisher Building.
In February 2005, WJR began offering its broadcasts to listeners worldwide through the Internet. The station continues to grow and develop online through through its constantly evolving website, podcast library, and other online services.
In February 2006, the station opened a state-of-the art remote broadcast facility inside the Wintergarden of Detroit's Renaissance Center, headquarters to General Motors.
On June 12, 2007, ABC Radio was purchased by Citadel Broadcasting Corporation. Included with the purchase of WJR was WDVD, WDRQ, and all ABC-owned AM and FM radio stations in the United States as well as the ABC Radio Network.
Today, WJR is located at AM 760 with 50,000 watts, and is Michigan's eighth oldest continuously licensed radio station. Offices and studios occupy the seventh and eighth floors of the Fisher Building in Detroit, Michigan.
Early reception was often tinny, signals were sometimes garbled, and if an emergency, such as a ship in distress occurred, stations would shut down to clear the frequency for transmission of vital information. Radio receivers were expensive and radios with loudspeakers were not yet in production.
A newspaper rivalry started WJR. In 1920 The Detroit News was the first area newspaper to put its own station, WWJ, on the air. Detroit Free Press owner and publisher E. D. Stair, pressured to keep up with his competitor, grudgingly installed a transmitter and studio in his building in 1922 with the call letters WCX, WJR's precursor.
On May 4, 1922, from a studio located on the 9th floor of the Free Press Building, WCX became known as "The Call of the Motor City" operating on the dial at 580. Opening with a bang, Governor Alexander Groesbeck and University of Michigan's President, Marion Burton, addressed the radio audience as a trio of flute, oboe and clarinet was accompanied by a piano. Poet Edgar Guest recited verse with his son, Bud Guest, at his side.
Although the station received congratulatory telegrams from as far away as Chicago, Grand Rapids, Texas, and Arkansas, the program couldn't be heard at owner Stair's house. Although his dwelling, near the Belle Isle Bridge, was within sight of the antenna, it stood in a dead spot, where an earphone set couldn't pick up the station's signals.
A 15x15 foot room, with the walls and ceiling lined with monk's cloth, became WCX's studio. Its slanting antenna was strung from the Free Press's roof to the roof of the nearby Dime Building. For a while, workers in the Dime Building listened to the radio through their telephones, which could not be used for calls during broadcast times until adjustments were made.
For a short time WCX, and its rival, WWJ, shared a single wavelength due to a federal requirement. Assigning more than one station to a wavelength was common during radio's early days. Some stations even had "silent nights," when a station gave up its spot on the dial to another station, sometimes located hundreds of miles away.
In the days before networks, records weren't played on the air; broadcasters believed listeners wanted live entertainment. Threatened by the new medium, some theater owners inserted a "no-broadcast" clause into each performer's contract. But that didn't stop the growth of Detroit's newest station. Its first manager, C.D. Neal Tomy, broke ranks with the era's typical broadcasting style in late November 1923, when he not only introduced the entertainers for a popular evening variety show, but he described the gowns worn by the featured singers, the Stickles Sisters. He also talked informally with the group leaders and hummed along with the tunes. Tomy then challenged his listening audience to identify another singing guest, Bartlett Holmes, by offering a "nice red apple" to the first person who called in with the correct answer. The station received hundreds of complimentary letters the following week and The Red Apple Club was born. Membership in the lighthearted club grew to five hundred thousand listeners coast-to-coast. The show was so popular that it eventually became the daily Luncheon Song Review.
On August 16, 1925, Pontiac's Jewett Radio and Phonographic Company officially took over the station, moving it to the Book-Cadillac Hotel. Jewett ordered a 5,000-watt transmitter, which could reach three times as far as the 517-watt old one. The station then became WCX/WJR ("JR" stands for Jewett Radio). For the next 2 1/2 years WCX broadcast news, sports, and The Red Apple Club; WJR aired commercial programs.
On December 20, 1926, WCX's licensee name was changed to WJR Incorporated, and was jointly owned by the "Detroit Free Press" and the Jewett Radio and Phonograph Company. It also moved from 580 to 680 on the dial.
In hopes of increasing sales of his radios, Jewett hired Leo J. Fitzpatrick, a popular personality in Kansas. When this failed, Jewett's business collapsed and the station was operated by Stroud and Company. Then along came G.A. Richards, president of Pontiac Automobiles for Southern Michigan. He bought the newspaper's interest in the station in December of 1926, and constructed a street-level studio in his showroom on the Cass Avenue side of the General Motors Building. It was the only station in the world to operate a ground-floor studio, making entertainers clearly visible to passersby. WJR's new air slogan was "The Goodwill Station". Later, Richards would also own the Detroit Lions from 1934 to 1939.
Although Richards lived in California, he demanded perfection of his Detroit radio station. Former WJR music librarian Harold Lake recalls, when during a trip from the train station in Detroit, Richards noticed weeds growing beneath a large WJR Billboard and ordered his chauffeur to stop at a nearby house with a finely manicured lawn. To everyone's amazement, Richards bought enough of the homeowner's lawn to replace the billboard's weeds.
In 1927, WJR broadcast Charles A. Lindbergh's triumphant return from his Trans-Atlantic flight. It also scheduled the first radio program from the Michigan Theatre's stage. WJR also broadcast a creative program at the Detroit Air Olympics at Ford Airport (now the Ford test track) in Dearborn. There musicians broadcast from a Ford Tri-Motor plane as Charles Dornberger played the saxophone and Perry Dring played his banjo.
The Federal Radio Commission revamped the entire broadcasting band in 1928. WCX/WJR became the highest-powered station in Michigan and moved to 750 on the dial. In December 1928 WJR physically separated from WCX. The station installed studios on the 28th floor of the new Fisher Building for a token rental fee and the regular on-air mention of its location. The station later relocated to the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd floors.
On April 17, 1929, WJR offered to buy all of WCX's equipment and WCX went permanently off the air. As Detroit became one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, WJR grew with it. WJR continued to broadcast from "The Golden Tower", increasing its power from five to ten thousand watts in 1932. During the 1930s, WJR began producing quality feature productions. Detroit Police Drama was based on actual crimes. The Seven-Day Trial of Vivienne Ware featured Judge John Brennan overseeing a trial, and then basing his verdict and sentence on the number of guilty and not-guilty votes sent in by listeners. A $250 prize was awarded to the person who wrote the best letter supporting his/her verdict. Radio dramas were attractive to the station because of low production costs. A cast of fifteen would work during the 1930s for five dollars a program.
The station switched from NBC to CBS in 1935 and constructed a fifty-thousand-watt transmitter in Riverview, 16 miles south of Detroit (the 733-foot tower later fell in November of 1940 due to strong winds and was replaced with a 700-foot tower).
According to Tomy, sponsors for morning-show broadcasts before the mid-1930s were hard to obtain because "they didn't have loudspeakers in those days, and a woman couldn't do her housework while wearing earphones." Once loudspeakers were introduced, morning time became exceedingly valuable, second only to the choice hours of 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. "Women do most of the buying and therefore are the persons sponsors want to reach," Tomy said in a 1937 Detroit Free Press article.
The war years brought about changes in the WJR programming schedule. In 1944, WJR created six hundred special programs devoted to the war effort. One featured a panel with George Romney discussing the war. In 1942 The Wilson Family series portrayed how a family coped on the home front during World War II. Navy Notes honored Michigan's servicemen, and Selfridge Salute spotlighted talented military personnel at the Mt. Clemens air force base.
On March 29, 1941, WJR moved again on the dial from 750 to 760 where it was finally able to rest to this day, and in 1942, WJR operated 24 hours a day.
By the end of the 1950's, WJR developed an intensive news schedule. The station produced eight, five minute daily newscasts, as well as five minute network news summaries throughout the day. By 1959 WJR broke with CBS and local programs took over.
Over the years, WJR programs won both large audiences and prestigious awards. WJR won a Peabody award for a lengthy investigation that freed a man unjustly imprisoned for murder.
On December 30, 1962, CBS and WJR merged again. CBS, needing WJR's large audiences, agreed to let WJR censor any network advertisements and programs. Such unprecedented freedom allowed WJR to be the only CBS station in America that didn't broadcast Arthur Godfrey's show live, since it aired at the same time WJR's premier program, "Adventures in Good Music". One of the most celebrated educational programs during the 1960s was the award winning "Kaleidoscope", a blend of recorded music and dramatic narrative on a particular topic. Host Mike Whorf's extensive library contributed to the program.
WJR was sold by the Goodwill Station Inc. to Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation on September 9, 1964. WJR's air slogan became "The Great Voice of the Great Lakes," which is still in use today, some forty years later.
On January 1, 1976, WJR dropped CBS and joined the NBC Radio Network. This lasted until the Spring of 1985, when the station switched to the ABC Information Network due to a merger of Capital Cities and ABC.
On February 9, 1996, Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was purchased by the Walt Disney Company. Included with the purchase of WJR was WHYT (now WDVD), WDRQ, and the other ABC-owned AM, FM and TV stations in the United States as well as its radio and television networks.
On September 18, 2000, the final broadcast aired from Studio D, located on the 22nd floor of the Fisher Building. This had been the home to numerous WJR personalities for almost 15 years, including the late J.P. McCarthy. Gene Fogel holds the distinction of being the first voice heard from WJR's current facilities on the eighth floor of the Fisher Building.
In February 2005, WJR began offering its broadcasts to listeners worldwide through the Internet. The station continues to grow and develop online through through its constantly evolving website, podcast library, and other online services.
In February 2006, the station opened a state-of-the art remote broadcast facility inside the Wintergarden of Detroit's Renaissance Center, headquarters to General Motors.
On June 12, 2007, ABC Radio was purchased by Citadel Broadcasting Corporation. Included with the purchase of WJR was WDVD, WDRQ, and all ABC-owned AM and FM radio stations in the United States as well as the ABC Radio Network.
Today, WJR is located at AM 760 with 50,000 watts, and is Michigan's eighth oldest continuously licensed radio station. Offices and studios occupy the seventh and eighth floors of the Fisher Building in Detroit, Michigan.
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