City | Baltimore, Maryland |
---|---|
Broadcast area | Baltimore, Maryland |
Branding | CBS Sports Radio 1300 |
Frequency | 1300 kHz |
First air date | 1920s (as WEAR) |
Format | Sports |
Power | 5,000 watts |
Class | B |
Facility ID | 28636 |
Callsign meaning | New JerZ (Jersey); Original call letters of what is now WABC in New York. |
Former callsigns | WEAR (1920s) WFBR (1920s–1990) WLIF (1990–1991) WJFK (1991–2008) |
Affiliations | CBS Sports Radio |
Owner |
CBS Radio (sale to Entercom pending) (CBS Radio WLIF-AM, Inc.) |
Sister stations | WJZ-FM, WJZ-TV, WLIF, WDCH-FM, WWMX |
Webcast | Listen Live |
Website | cbsbaltimore.com |
WJZ ("CBS Sports Radio 1300") is a sports radio station operating on 1300 kHz and licensed to Baltimore, Maryland with transmitter operations in Windsor Mill.
Under ownership of CBS Radio, it is currently airing the CBS Sports Radio network full-time.
The WJZ callsign was first used on what is now WABC in New York City. The original Westinghouse Electric Corporation, whose broadcasting division is a predecessor to the current broadcasting unit of CBS Corporation, launched WJZ in 1921, and was located originally in Newark, New Jersey. WJZ was sold in 1923 to the Radio Corporation of America, who moved its operations to New York, and on January 1, 1927, WJZ became the flagship station for the NBC Blue Network. (In the 1929 movie The Cocoanuts the station was name-checked by Chico Marx in a sequence of running gags between Chico and Groucho: Chico uses the station's call-sign as the punchline of a punning joke based on his confusion over the meaning of the word "radius", which he confuses with 'radios', leading to the mention of the station's call-sign.) NBC Blue would become the American Broadcasting Company in 1942. ABC later established WJZ-FM and WJZ-TV at the same time in 1948.
In 1953, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres, and changed the call letters of their New York area stations to WABC, WABC-FM (now WPLJ) and WABC-TV. Four years later, Westinghouse Broadcasting acquired Baltimore television station WAAM (channel 13) and changed its call letters to WJZ-TV, which remained an ABC affiliate until 1995, when the station switched to CBS.