City | Bangor, Maine |
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Broadcast area | Bangor area |
Branding | Big 104 FM |
Frequency | 910 kHz |
First air date | November 1924 (as WABI) |
Format | Classic Hits (WABK-FM simulcast) |
Power | 5,000 watts |
Class | B |
Facility ID | 3670 |
Transmitter coordinates | 44°46′51″N 68°44′54″W / 44.78083°N 68.74833°W |
Callsign meaning | The ABenaKi Company, founders of the original WABK; also a reference to the station's original WABI callsign |
Former callsigns | WABI (1924–2009) WAEI (2009–2016) |
Owner |
Blueberry Broadcasting (Blueberry Broadcasting, LLC) |
Sister stations | WBAK, WBFB, WBFE, WKSQ, WVOM-FM |
Website | big104fm.com |
WABK (910 AM) is a radio station licensed to Bangor, Maine, United States. The station is owned by Blueberry Broadcasting. WABK broadcasts a classic hits format, simulcast with WABK-FM (104.3 FM) in Gardiner, WBAK (104.7 FM) in Belfast, and WBKA (107.7 FM) in Bar Harbor.
The station began broadcasting as WABI in November 1924, operating at 1250 kHz under the ownership of the Bangor Railway & Electric Company. A license had been granted in May 1923. It is Maine's oldest radio station (several other stations, including WMB in Auburn and WPAY in Bangor, were licensed prior to WABI but have since ceased operations, with WMB being deleted two months before WABI's licensing). Ownership was transferred to the First Universalist Church by 1926; within a year, it moved to 770 kHz, and on November 11, 1928, the Federal Radio Commission moved WABI to 1200 kHz By 1930, the station was owned by Pine Tree Broadcasting Corporation; in 1932, it was again transferred to the First Universalist Society. Under the First Universalist Church, WABI only broadcast on Sundays. The station was owned by Community Broadcasting Service by 1935; it was Bangor's CBS affiliate, replacing WLBZ, by 1939. During the early 1940s, WABI again changed frequencies; the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement moved the station to 1230 kHz. in 1941, and in 1942 it began broadcasting at its current frequency of 910 kHz.
Originally, Community Broadcasting Service was controlled by Frederick B. Simpson; however, in 1949, health problems forced him to retire and sell WABI to a partnership between former Maine governor Horace A. Hildreth and Murray Carpenter. By then, the station had joined ABC, swapping affiliations with WGUY. Hildreth became the sole owner in 1953, when Carpenter sold his stake in WABI and bought WGUY; that year, WABI-TV was launched. On March 15, 1961, an FM sister station, WABI-FM, was put on the air at 97.1 MHz as a simulcast of much of the AM station's programming; around this time, the ABC affiliation was dropped in favor of Mutual, which WABI had already carried in addition to ABC for a decade. It returned to ABC in 1964.