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WBT
City of license	Charlotte, North Carolina
Broadcast area	Charlotte metropolitan area
Branding	News/Talk 1110
Slogan	Charlotte's News, Weather, and Traffic Station
Frequency	1110 kHz (AM) 99.3 MHz (FM)
First air date	AM: April 10, 1922 (originally experimental as 4XD from December 19, 1920 - April 9, 1922) FM: August 30th, 1969
Format	News/Talk
Power	50,000 Watts (AM)
ERP	7,700 Watts (FM)
Class	Class A AM Station Class C3 FM Station
Callsign meaning	randomly assigned by FCC; unofficially meant Watch Buicks Travel while it was owned by a local Buick dealer
Owner	Greater Media
Webcast	WBT-AM Live Feed
Website	wbt.com

WBT (known on air as News Talk 1110) is a 50,000 watt clear-channel radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina, broadcasting on the AM dial at 1110 kHz. It simulcasts on WBT-FM, at 99.3 MHz in Chester, South Carolina. It is owned by Greater Media. The station's studios are located just west of uptown Charlotte, while its transmitter is located in the southern part of the city.

Programming

The station relies mostly on locally-produced talk shows and offers podcasts of its local shows on its official site. Like many talk radio stations, WBT's programming tends to lean to the right of the political spectrum and presents news, weather, and traffic reports each half hour. On weekdays, the station offers a four-hour morning drive-time newscast, and local hosts Keith Larson, John Hancock and Tara Servatius, as well as the syndicated Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz and Coast to Coast AM with George Noory programs.

Sports

WBT is the flagship station of the Carolina Panthers. It was the flagship of the Charlotte Hornets from the team's debut in 1988 until the team moved to New Orleans in 2002. It was also the Charlotte home of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels from 1977 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 2006. From 1991 to 1995, it was the Charlotte-area home of the Duke Blue Devils.

Past programming

Past hosts include "Hello" Henry Boggan, H.A. Thompson, Ty Boyd, Grady Cole, "Rockin'" Ray Gooding, James K. Flynn, Bob Lacey, Spike O'Dell, Richard Spires, Brad Krantz and Jason Lewis.

Don Russell is the station's longest-tenured personality, having worked at the station on six separate occasions since the 1970s. He currently hosts the weekend version of Charlotte's Morning News.

History

The station dates to December 1920, when Fred Laxton, Earle Gluck and Fred Bunker set up an amateur radio station in Laxton's home. Four months later, the station received an experimental license as 4XD. The trio decided to go commercial in 1922, and incorporated as the Southern Radio Corporation. In April, the station signed on as the first fully-licensed radio station south of Washington, D.C. WSB in Atlanta was the first station in the Southeast to actually broadcast, a month before WBT. However, the Commerce Department only authorized WSB to broadcast weather reports until it received its license a few months after WBT.

In 1925, the original owners sold WBT to Charlotte Buick dealer C.C. Coddington, who promoted both the radio station and his auto dealership with the slogan "Watch Buicks Travel." Coddington located the station's transmitter site at a farm property he owned on Nations Ford Road in south Charlotte, where it remains today. He sold WBT to the two-year-old CBS network in 1929, beginning a relationship between the station and the network which also continues today. A series of power increases brought the station to its current 50,000 watts. New FCC regulations forced CBS to sell the station to Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company, forerunner of Jefferson-Pilot, in 1945, though it remained a CBS affiliate. Jefferson-Pilot later signed on Charlotte's first television station, WBTV, as well as an FM station that eventually became WLNK. (WBT co-founder Earle Gluck was later a partner in competitor WSOC, and was the first president of WSOC-TV when it launched in 1957.)

In 1925, Freeman Gosden and Charlie Correll started a comedy show carried by WBT that was a forerunner to Amos and Andy^[1]. Russ Hodges, later famous as the radio voice of the New York/San Francisco Giants, worked for a time at WBT^{[citation needed]}.

For much of its history, WBT aired a variety of programming including news, sports, soap operas, and musical programs such as "Arthur Smith and the Crackerjacks." Smith, best known for writing the song that became the Deliverance theme "Dueling Banjos," went to work at WBT at age 20 at the invitation of station manager Charles Crutchfield. He played guitar and fiddle for musical programs on WBT before getting his own show^[1][2]. Crutchfield believed that Charlotte, not Nashville, could have ended up being the country music capital because of the station's early "Briarhoppers" and "Carolina Hayride" shows, which may have inspired The Grand Ole Opry^[3]. Country music continued at night on WBT until the late 1970s^{[citation needed]}.

Grady Cole was WBT morning host for 32 years, replaced in 1961 by Ty Boyd, who hosted the morning show until 1973, playing such artists as Duke Ellington, Peggy Lee and Petula Clark. Then he moved to WBTV. He returned to WBT in 2008 to co-host the morning show while its regular hosts took time off^[4].

In 1971, WBT switched to adult contemporary music during the day and hired H. A. Thompson. WBT won Billboard adult contemporary station of the year in 1976 and 1978. In 1979, "Hello Henry" Boggan began his nighttime talk show^[5].

Talk programming continued to increase on WBT through the 1980s, mostly at night. Larry King moved from WSOC and stayed on WBT until 1987, when WBT decided its NBC affiliation needed to take priority over Mutual Broadcasting System requirements. Bruce Williams' NBC show Talknet replaced King. WBT expanded "Hello Henry" and its "Sports Huddle" program^[6]

WBT made changes to its format on December 10, 1990, hoping to attract more women. The station dropped James K. Flynn, Thompson and Tom Desio, generating numerous protests. Don Russell had hosted "Russell & Flynn" in the morning; the show was renamed "Russell & Friends." John Hancock became midday host, and WBTV personalities Mike and Barbara McKay began an afternoon program. Boggan, whose show had run in the afternoon, returned to his evening slot, replacing Desio, but was sometimes pre-empted by sports programs. WBT also switched its network affiliation from NBC to CBS on December 21^[7][8].

WBT was not the first Charlotte-area station to air Rush Limbaugh. WADA in Shelby, WSIC in Statesville and WHKY in Hickory preceded WBT.^[9] But on September 3, 1991, WBT dropped the McKays to become the 400th station to air the conservative talk show host^[10].

In 1995, Jefferson-Pilot bought WBZK-FM (which signed on August 30th, 1969) in Chester to improve its nighttime coverage in the Charlotte area. The AM station must adjust its coverage at night (see below), resulting in spotty coverage in much of the western portion of the area. Soon after the purchase, WBZK's calls became WBT-FM. The transmitter is located 40 miles southwest of Charlotte. WBT-FM almost always simulcasts its AM sister, although the two have occasionally carried different programming. For example, in 1998 and 1999, the FM station carried audio of the Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings, while the AM station continued with its regularly scheduled programs.

Lincoln Financial Group bought Jefferson-Pilot in 2006. The merged company retained Jefferson-Pilot's broadcasting division, renaming it Lincoln Financial Media. In January 2008, Lincoln Financial sold WBT-AM-FM and WLNK to Greater Media of Braintree, Massachusetts. It sold its three television stations, including WBTV, to Raycom Media--thus breaking up Charlotte's last heritage radio/television cluster. Greater Media had long wanted to expand into the fast-growing Charlotte market; its owner had wanted to buy WBT after hearing its signal at night on Cape Cod.

Broadcasting

WBT's unusual diamond-shaped antennas (called Blaw-Knox Towers), make up three of only eight still operational in the United States. In the morning hours of September 22, 1989, Hurricane Hugo slammed into Charlotte. The storm severely damaged two of WBT's towers and nearly killed station engineer Bob White. The FCC approved WBT to operate on a full-power non-directional pattern for the next year while the two damaged towers were rebuilt.

WBT's transmitter just south of Uptown Charlotte, NC

Despite its clear-channel status, WBT's signal is spotty at best in some parts of the Charlotte metropolitan area at night because it must adjust its coverage at sundown to protect co-located KFAB in Omaha, Nebraska. Even though WBT must direct its signal north-south as a result, its nighttime signal still reaches parts of 22 states (including much of the country east of the Mississippi River) as well as portions of Ontario and Quebec. It can also be heard in some Caribbean islands. During the day, it provides at least grade B coverage as far as the fringes of the Columbia, Upstate and Piedmont Triad areas.

For many years, WBT boasted that it could be heard "from Maine to Miami" at night.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Kay McFadden, "WBT's Been on the Air for 75 Years," The Charlotte Observer, April 10, 1997.
2. ^ http://www.kenilworthmedia.com/cv/ourstate/people/arthur_smith.htm, Retrieved on 2008/10/28.
3. ^ Tom Minehart, "Country's Capital Could Have Been Charlotte," Chicago Tribune, November 19, 1985.
4. ^ Mark Washburn, "Ty Boyd Will Be Back on the Radio Monday," The Charlotte Observer, July 5, 2008.
5. ^ http://wbt.com/programming/history.cfm;jsessionid=2a30597873dacd809d612111477434a6b300?decade=1970, Retrieved on 2008/10/28.
6. ^ Jeff Borden, "Larry King Dethroned by WBT," The Charlotte Observer, October 1, 1987.
7. ^ Tim Funk, "WBT Pair Lose Jobs in Shakeup," The Charlotte Observer, December 7, 1990.
8. ^ Tim Funk, "WBT Radio Lineup Seeks Change of Image," The Charlotte Observer, Tuesday, December 11, 1990.
9. ^ Tim Funk, "Listen Up: From 'Radio Free Bubba' to 'The Shadow,' Area Radio's Ready to Turn You On," The Charlotte Observer, July 12, 1991.
10. ^ Diane Suchetka, "Rush Limbaugh's Replacing McKays on WBT Talk Show," The Charlotte Observer, September 2, 1991.

External links

• Official homepage
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WBT
• Radio Locator Information on WBT
• WBT (AM) is at coordinates 35°07′56″N 80°53′23″W / 35.132222, -80.889722 (WBT (AM))Coordinates: 35°07′56″N 80°53′23″W / 35.132222, -80.889722 (WBT (AM))
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WBT
• Radio Locator information on WBT

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