WZAK
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| City | Cleveland, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area |
Greater Cleveland Northeast Ohio |
| Branding | 93.1 WZAK |
| Slogan | Cleveland's R&B Leader |
| Frequency | 93.1 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | May 26, 1963 |
| Format |
Urban adult contemporary HD2: Urban gospel (WJMO simulcast) HD3: News/talk (WERE simulcast) |
| ERP | 27,500 watts |
| HAAT | 189 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 74465 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 41°16′50.00″N 81°37′22.00″W / 41.2805556°N 81.6227778°W |
| Callsign meaning | MuZAK |
| Affiliations | Cumulus Media Networks |
| Owner |
Radio One (Blue Chip Broadcasting Licenses, Ltd.) |
| Sister stations | WENZ, WERE, WJMO |
| Webcast |
Listen Live HD2: Listen Live HD3: Listen Live |
| Website | wzakcleveland |
WZAK (93.1 FM) – branded 93.1 WZAK – is a commercial urban adult contemporary radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, serving Greater Cleveland and much of surrounding Northeast Ohio. Owned by Radio One, WZAK is a local affiliate for The Tom Joyner Morning Show and nationally syndicated personality D. L. Hughley. The WZAK studios are located in Downtown Cleveland, while the station transmitter resides in Brecksville. Besides a standard analog transmission, WZAK broadcasts over three HD Radio channels, and is available online.
WZAK began as an ethnic radio station, signing on the air on May 26, 1963. The Ohio Music Corporation, the local franchise for MUZAK, had the original construction permit to build the station. Ohio Music Corporation, Xen & Lula Zapis, Joe & Betty Bauer and Bob Stumpf formed Trans World Broadcasting to put WZAK on the air.
Zapis and the Bauers had been previously involved with WXEN, an earlier ethnic programmer in Cleveland, which Zapis also was associated with (and which had call letters derived from Zapis' first name). WZAK was Cleveland's first full-time ethnic radio station, presenting programming in 17 foreign languages, including programs in Hungarian, German (hosted by the Bauers and a second show hosted by Bob Stumpf), Italian, Slovenian, Greek (hosted by Zapis and his wife Lula), Irish, Arabic, Lebanese, and Hindi. Some groups had multiple different programs; there were, for example, five different programs offered in Spanish and five different German programs.
Most programs were brokered, that is, the program producers were not station employees, but independent producers who put the program on the air determined program content, and sold the advertising for the program. Although the program content varied, most programs primarily featured music from the homeland, along with some news or discussion. Although foreign languages seemed to dominate, English was actually used about half of the time during the station's broadcasts. Owing to this practice, one of the more popular programs that aired on WZAK was not ethnic at all, but was an early progressive rock show hosted by Barry Weingart and Steve "Doc Nemo" Nemeth in 1967.
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Wikipedia