WERE

For the Cleveland radio station which identified as WERE from 1949 to 2007, see WJMO.

WERE
Broadcast areaGreater Cleveland
Frequency1490 kHz
BrandingNewsTalk 1490
Programming
Language(s)English
FormatUrban talk radio
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
  • Urban One
  • (Blue Chip Broadcasting Licenses, Ltd.)
History
First air date
December 12, 1947
(76 years ago) (1947-12-12)
Former call signs
  • WSRS (1947–59)
  • WJMO (1959–2007)
Call sign meaning
Transferred from the former WERE (1300 AM) in Cleveland, now WJMO
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID74472
ClassC
Power1,000 watts
Transmitter coordinates
41°30′48.00″N 81°36′5.00″W / 41.5133333°N 81.6013889°W / 41.5133333; -81.6013889
Repeater(s)93.1 WZAK-HD3 (Cleveland)
Links
Public license information
Webcast
Websitenewstalkcleveland.com

WERE (1490 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to serve Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and carrying an urban talk radio format known as "NewsTalk 1490". Owned by Urban One, the station serves the Greater Cleveland region. WERE is one of two Cleveland-area stations that carries The Rickey Smiley Morning Show,[2] syndicated personalities Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and is the Cleveland affiliate for Red Eye Radio. Since 2008, an emphasis has been placed on brokered programming.[3]

Built and launched in 1947 as WSRS, a suburban station focused on Cleveland Heights proper, this station became the second in the Cleveland market to use the WJMO call sign in 1959. During this period, WJMO carried a rhythm and blues/soul music format continuously from 1959 to 1999, reputedly longer than any other such station in the United States,[4] and was one of the first major-market radio stations to have an African-American serve as their general manager. At the same time, a number of legal issues surrounding owner United Broadcasting, repeated technical violations committed, strained relations between station management and the station's staff and audience, and a controversial ownership transfer in 1992 attracted criticism and scrutiny by the public, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), at one point putting the station's broadcast license in question. A series of ownership buyouts in the late 1990s saw the station adopt an urban gospel format, then come under control of Radio One (now Urban One); a 2007 format swap resulted in 1490 AM picking up the format and calls of WERE from 1300 AM, which it has maintained to the present day.

WERE's studios are located in the Cleveland suburb of Independence, while the station transmitter resides near University Circle, adjacent to the Case Western Reserve University campus. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WERE's programming is available online and simulcast on the HD digital subchannel of co-owned WZAK.

  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WERE". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference CPD20200101pP1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference CPD20080127pJ7 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference WJMOrnb was invoked but never defined (see the help page).