WDFN
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| City | Detroit, Michigan |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area |
Metro Detroit [1] (Daytime) [2] (Nighttime) |
| Branding | 1130 AM WDFN The Fan |
| Slogan | Detroit Sports Talk |
| Frequency | 1130 kHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | December 17, 1939 |
| Format | Sports |
| Power | 50,000 watts (Daytime) 10,000 watts (Nighttime) |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 59969 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°06′39″N 83°11′52″W / 42.11083°N 83.19778°W |
| Callsign meaning | Detroit's The FaN |
| Former callsigns | WWWW (9/14/92-5/20/94) WCXI (3/1/79-9/14/92) WCAR (12/17/39-3/1/79) |
| Affiliations | Fox Sports Radio |
| Owner |
iHeartMedia (AMFM Radio Licenses, L.L.C.) |
| Sister stations | WDTW-FM, WJLB, WKQI, WMXD, WNIC |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 1130 WDFN The Fan |
WDFN is a sports-talk radio station in the Detroit, Michigan, market. It broadcasts in the AM radio band at 1130 kHz, which is a clear-channel frequency. WDFN is not considered a clear-channel station because of its Class B status. WDFN is owned by iHeartMedia, and until the end of the 2008-09 NBA season, was the flagship station for the Detroit Pistons. It is affiliated with Fox Sports. WDFN is one of several sports-talk stations in metro Detroit, the others being 1270 AM (CBS Sports), 1090 AM (NBC), and 97.1 FM ("The Ticket"). WDFN is the only one of the four sports stations that carries a significant amount of community programming and infomercials unrelated to sports.
The WDFN studios are located in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, while the station transmitter resides in Trenton.
WDFN is licensed to broadcast in HD.
AM 1130 has been on the air since December 17, 1939, and bore the WCAR calls from its inception until 1979. WCAR was originally licensed to the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. It initially broadcast on 1100 kHz with 1,000 watts (daytime only). The owners were "a group of Pontiac citizens," including H.Y. Levinson, who owned half of the stock and managed the station. Levinson also was publisher of the Farmington Enterprise, a weekly newspaper in Farmington, Michigan.
For many years the station aired a middle-of-the-road/adult standards music format, as Levinson insisted that WCAR air only "good music" and refused to allow anything even remotely resembling rock and roll on his station's playlist.
Levinson would eventually relax his anti-rock stance when it became evident that the conservative "good music" approach wasn't making him enough money. By 1970, "W-Car" had transitioned to a personality MOR Contemporary format (what would likely be considered Hot Adult Contemporary today), playing more hit singles and fewer MOR album cuts while shying away from very hard rock, and featuring new jingles and a "hipper" image built around slogans such as "W-Car Cares About Detroit and Its People" (including inventive homemade public service announcements and promos for local businesses such as marriage counselors). By the summer of 1971, the station had added more harder rock and roll records to its adult contemporary format, and that fall the station made the full transition into Top 40 as "All Hit Music, The Giant 1130," similar in presentation to market leader CKLW. This incarnation of W-Car was consulted by Ken Draper, who at the time was programming similar formats on WFDF in Flint (which was known as "Giant 91") and WJIM-AM in Lansing.
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