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WAAM
City of license	Ann Arbor, Michigan
Broadcast area	Daytime Nighttime
Branding	TalkRadio 1600
Slogan	The Talk of Ann Arbor
First air date	October, 1948
Frequency	1600 (kHz)
Format	News-Talk
Power	5,000 watts
Class	B
Callsign meaning	W Ann Arbor Michigan
Former callsigns	WHRV (1948-1963)
Owner	First Broadcasting Investment Partners
Webcast	[1]
Website	http://www.talkradio1600.com/

WAAM is a radio station in Ann Arbor, Michigan that broadcasts on AM 1600. Known as "Talk Radio 1600," WAAM broadcasts with 5,000 watts of power. The station is owned by Big D Broadcasting, a subsidiary of First Broadcasting Investment Partners. Until recently, the station broadcast in AM Stereo.

Contents 1 History 2 Current programming 3 Sources 4 External links

The station signed on as WHRV in October, 1948. Ollie McLaughlin, a black DJ on WHRV, is credited for helping to discover early 1960s rocker and Michigan native Del Shannon, and, after he left the station in 1961, helped launch the careers of several other Michigan artists, including Barbara Lewis, The Capitols, and Deon Jackson.

WHRV was a typical full-service radio station of its day, with popular music and a heavy commitment to local news and sports play-by-play. The station was sold in 1963 and changed its calls to WAAM (pronounced "Wham" on the air). Throughout the 1960s, WAAM featured chiefly MOR music during the day and played Top 40 hits at night. WAAM was also one of the first AM radio stations to feature progressive rock, with a Sunday-night show called "Strobe" and later "Spectrum." WAAM developed a reputation for spotting potential hits before CKLW and other Detroit-area competitors got a hold of them, including "Cherry, Cherry" by Neil Diamond and "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" by Bob Seger.

The WAAM studios were almost completely destroyed by a fire in 1968, forcing the station to broadcast from a trailer in its parking lot for over a year. The station moved into new studios in 1969 and expanded its MOR format to 24 hours a day. Then, in 1972, the station was sold again, and WAAM transitioned to a full-time Top 40 hit music format, with a high-energy presentation and a continued news and sports play-by-play commitment. Among WAAM's Top 40 jocks were some who who went on to greater success in the Detroit market, including Jim Harper (WNIC, WMGC; known on WAAM as "Tom Michaels") and The Electrifyin' Mojo (WGPR, WJLB, WHYT, WMXD).

In 1976, WAAM was sold again and transitioned from Top 40 to a personality Adult Contemporary sound, eventually adding more call-in talk shows to its schedule. Lloyd Johnson (d/b/a Whitehall Broadcasting) acquired the station in 1983. By 2002, WAAM was airing chiefly news and talk programming during the week with much of the weekend programming devoted to music, including Westwood One's satellite-delivered "Adult Standards" (formerly "AM Only") format, and "The Sounds of Sinatra" with Sid Mark.

In August 2001, owner Whitehall Broadcasting, a subsidiary of a retirement community in Ann Arbor, announced that they would sell WAAM to Clear Channel Communications for $2 million. Over a year later, Whitehall and Clear Channel called off the deal after the FCC voiced concerns that the sale would give Clear Channel, who owned four other stations in the area, a monopoly on the Ann Arbor market. Whitehall did find a buyer for the station, Big D Broadcasting, in August of 2003. In October of that year, WAAM sold from Whitehall to Big D for $1.5 million.

Shortly afterward, WAAM eliminated most of its music programming to become a primarily talk radio station, in an attempt to attract younger demographics who viewed the station as too "geriatric" when it was under Whitehall's ownership. Lucy Ann Lance, former morning show host at Clear Channel's WQKL-FM 107.1 ("Kool 107"), moved over to WAAM to host mornings.

WAAM has filed an application with the FCC to move from Ypsilanti to the Detroit suburb of Oak Park and increase its power from 5,000 watts day and night to 15,000 watts day and night. If the application is approved, it is likely that AM station WHLX (1590 kHz) in Marine City, Michigan (near Port Huron) will shut down, and it will end the 1600 frequency's nearly six-decade-long history of serving Ann Arbor.

Today, the station competes with Clear Channel's WLBY-AM 1290 for talk-radio listeners in Ann Arbor, and is more conservative than WLBY, which airs liberal talk from the Air America Radio network. The current WAAM weekday schedule is as follows:

• America in the Morning, 5am-6am (M-F)
• Lucy Ann Lance, 6am-9am (M-F)
• Laura Ingraham, 9am-12pm (M-F)
• Bill O'Reilly, 12pm-2pm (M-F)
• The Dave Ramsey Show, 2pm-3pm (M-F)
• Dr. Laura Schlessinger, 3pm-6pm (M-F)
• The Savage Nation with Michael Savage, 6pm-7pm, 9pm-10pm (M) 6pm-10pm (T-F)
• The Sports Den with Al & Jim, 7pm-9pm (M)
• The Alan Colmes Show, 10pm-1am (M-F)
• Coast-to-Coast AM, 12am-5am (M), 1am-5am (T-F)

Saturday mornings from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. is the well known Appliance Doctor radio program with Joe Gagnon. Gagnon helps callers with major home appliance questions. The station's longest-serving personality is Michigan Radio Hall of Famer Ted Heusel, who has been broadcasting in the market for over 54 years and hosts a two-hour Saturday talk show. Only a few music shows remain on WAAM, including "The Sounds of Sinatra" and "Big Bands, Ballads and Blues" on Saturday nights, along with "Broadway's Biggest Hits" and the Jim Brickman radio show on Sunday mornings.

The most enduring music show featured on WAAM Sunday nights is Thayrone's nationally-syndicated program The Bone Conduction Music Show, has been an Ann Arbor staple since 1984. Thayrone, a locally known musician, is also a conservative pundit. He had previously hosted "On The Edge with Thayrone", a weekday-afternoon talk show on WAAM.

• Michiguide.com - WAAM History
• WAAM: 50 Golden Years, a documentary put together in 1997 to celebrate the station's 50th anniversary; narrated by Jim Heddle

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WAAM