WHO (AM)
WHO is a
clear channel radio station broadcasting 50,000 watts on 1040
AM with a
news/talk format. The station is owned by
Clear Channel Communications and is located in
Des Moines, Iowa. The station can also be heard over most of the
continental United States during
nighttime hours.
WHO first began broadcasting on
April 11,
1924, from the top floor of the
Liberty Buildingin downtown Des Moines. The callsign came from the fact that during the 1920s people searching for stations on the radio dial would ask, "Who is it?" The station was originally owned by Bankers Life, which is now the
Principal Financial Group. After the
FRC's
General Order 40 reallocated frequencies in 1928, WHO ended up sharing time on the same frequency with
WOC in
Davenport. In 1930,
B. J. Palmer, owner of WOC, bought WHO, and the two stations operated together as WOC-WHO until a new 50,000-watt transmitter near
Mitchellville began operating on
November 11,
1933. (WOC ceased broadcasting that day but returned on another frequency a year later.) WHO moved from 1000 AM to the current 1040 AM on
March 29,
1941, as a result of the
North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement. Today WHO is one of only two 50,000-watt AM radio stations in Iowa (
KXEL in
Waterloo is the other), though WHO's signal is non-directional and KXEL's is directional[
1].
In 1948, WHO-FM 100.3 signed on the air; WHO-FM has changed formats and call letters several times since then and now broadcasts as
KDRB, "100.3 The Bus." In 1954,
WHO-TV began broadcasting on channel 13.
WHO was owned by the Palmer family until Jacor Broadcasting purchased the station in 1997; Jacor merged with
Clear Channel Communications a year later. WHO and the other Clear Channel radio stations in Des Moines (KDRB,
KPTL,
KKDM, and
KXNO) continued to share a building with WHO-TV until they moved into a new facility in 2005.
Ronald Reagan worked as a sportscaster with WHO from 1932 to 1937.
Current local talk show hosts include Van Harden and Bonnie Lucas, co-hosts of the
Van and Bonnie[2] morning show; Jan Mickelson; and Steve Deace, who previously did sports talk radio (most recently with sister station KXNO) before taking over the afternoon drive slot in June 2006. Weekend local talk shows include
Saturday Morning Live and the
WHO Radio Wise Guys. WHO also carries
syndicated talk shows such as those hosted by
Rush Limbaugh,
Dr. Laura, and
Michael Reagan.
WHO has also been the longtime home for
University of Iowa sports. Jim Zabel, who joined WHO in 1944, was their
play-by-play voice for Hawkeye
football and
basketball games from 1949 to 1996. While Gary Dolphin now handles those duties, Zabel remains with WHO as co-host (with Jon Miller of HawkeyeNation.com, who is the heir apparent to Zabel as WHO's Sports Director, announced in May of 2006) of the
Sound Off sports talk show that airs after Hawkeye games, and as co-host of
Two Guys Named Jim on Sunday nights with former
Iowa State University football coach Jim Walden.
In 2006, WHO began carrying classic monologues from "The Tonight Show with
Johnny Carson" at 10:30 PM local time, thus directly competing with television's
Jay Leno, which airs on sister WHO-TV, and
David Letterman.
WHO perennially ranks at or near the top of the
Arbitron ratings in the Des Moines market.
WHO broadcasts an Internet stream from 4:59 am (
Central Time zone) to 9:00 pm weekdays, Saturdays from 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, and Sundays from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm[
3].
* Stein, Jeff,
Making Waves: The People and Places of Iowa Broadcasting (ISBN 0971832315). Cedar Rapids, Iowa: WDG Communications, 2004.
*
WHO radio's website*
WHO radio historical artifacts from DesMoinesBroadcasting.com
