WGTK (AM)

WGTK (970 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Louisville, Kentucky. It is owned by Salem Media Group and it airs a conservative talk radio format. Similar to many Salem talk stations, it calls itself "970 The Answer." Its studios and offices are on Corporate Campus Drive in Louisville, while its transmitter is on Hamburg Pike in Jeffersonville, Indiana.[1]

WGTK
CityLouisville, Kentucky
Broadcast areaLouisville metropolitan area
Frequency970 kHz
Branding970 The Answer
SloganIntelligent. Conservative.
Programming
FormatTalk
AffiliationsSalem Radio Network
Townhall Radio News
Ownership
OwnerSalem Media Group
(Salem Communications Holding Corporation)
OperatorWord Media Group (outright sale pending)
WFIA, WFIA-FM
History
First air date
1927 (in Hopkinsville, moved to Louisville in 1932)
Former call signs
WFIW (1927-1933)
WAVE (1933-1981)
WAVG (1981-1997)
WLKY (1997-2000)
Call sign meaning
W G TalK
Technical information
Facility ID63936
ClassB
Power5,000 watts
Links
WebcastListen Live
Website970amtheanswer.com

On weekdays, WGTK runs the entire line up of Salem Radio Network syndicated talk shows: Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Larry Elder and Joe Walsh. WGTK had aired a local midday show with former WHAS host Joe Elliott but that was discontinued in the Fall of 2015. The station begins most hours with co-owned Townhall Radio News. WGTK is the radio home of Bellarmine University men's basketball.

In the 1990s, the WGTK call letters belonged to a now defunct classic rock station in Middlebury, Vermont. When Salem acquired an FM station in the Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina radio market, it used the same call letters, with that station known as WGTK-FM since February 2013.

History

Early years

In 1927, the station began as WFIW in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.[2] In 1932, WFIW was bought by George Norton Jr., and its transmitter was moved to Louisville, with the call letters being changed to WAVE.[3] WAVE was originally on AM 940 and was an NBC Red Network affiliate. It carried NBC's schedule of dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and big band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio."[4] After the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA) took effect, WAVE moved to AM 970.

In 1948, it added the first TV station in Kentucky, WAVE-TV. Because WAVE (AM) had been a long-time NBC Radio affiliate, WAVE-TV primarily carried NBC programs.

MOR and Oldies

As network programming shifted from radio to TV during the 1950s, WAVE began airing a full-service MOR format, which later shifted to oldies. In 1988, WAVE was sold to Radio One (unrelated to the company now known as Urban One that eventually bought stations in the Louisville market in the late 1990s). Because the TV station kept the WAVE call sign, the AM station changed call letters to WAVG.

In the Fall of 1989, the station dropped local programming and began running a satellite-fed syndicated oldies format. On September 4, 1990, WAVG switched to an adult standards format.

In 1991, WAVG was sold to Sunnyside Communications. On January 8, 1997, Sunnyside announced it would sell WAVG to Pulitzer, then-owners of WLKY-TV, which announced plans to flip the station to an all-news format, with AP News Radio programming and simulcasts of WLKY's TV newscasts. The changeover took place at noon on June 16. At the same time, the WAVG call letters and standards format moved to 1450 AM, while 970 adopted the WLKY call sign.[5]

Purchase by Salem

In August 2000, Hearst-Argyle (which bought all of Pulitzer's broadcasting outlets the year before) sold the radio station to current owner Salem Communications. Salem flipped it to a talk radio format as WGTK.[6]

On January 5, 2015, WGTK rebranded as "970 The Answer".[7]

On December 22, 2016, it was announced that Word Broadcasting Network, owner of ION Television affiliate WBNA and operator of non-commercial Contemporary Christian station WJIE-FM, would take over operations of WGTK and sister stations WFIA (AM) and WFIA-FM under a local marketing agreement, effective January 3, 2017.[8]

On February 10, 2020, Word Broadcasting announced that it would take advantage of the option in its agreement to acquire the stations from Salem for $4 million.[9][10]

References
  1. Radio-Locator.com/WGTK
  2. "WFIW Rebuilding" (PDF). Broadcasting. October 15, 1931. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  3. Kieber, John E., Ed. (2001). The Encyclopedia of Louisville. The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2100-0. P. 126.
  4. Broadcasting Yearbook 1935 page 32
  5. Dorsey, Tom (June 16, 1997). "WLKY adds all-news station at 970-AM". The Courier-Journal. p. F2.
  6. Dorsey, Tom (August 28, 2000). "New management". The Courier-Journal. p. F2.
  7. Lance Venta (5 January 2015). "Salem Rebrands Seven Talkers As The Answer". RadioInsight.
  8. Lance Venta (22 December 2016). "Word Broadcasting Network To LMA Salem's Louisville Cluster". RadioInsight.
  9. "Salem Media Group, Inc. Announces Third Quarter 2019 Total Revenue of $64.1 Million". BusinessWire. November 12, 2019. Retrieved December 21, 2019.
  10. "Salem Sells Louisville Cluster". RadioInsight. 10 February 2020.

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