ABSTRACT
One of the most powerful New York City stations (in terms of both transmission and ratings strength), WABC has been successful first as a Top 40 station and more recently as a talk radio outlet. The flagship station of Disney/American Broadcasting Companies (ABC), WABC traces its history back to 1921. (It should not be confused with another WABC, also in New York City, that served as the flagship for the CBS network and became WCBS in 1946.)
Origins
WABC began broadcasting in 1921 in Newark, New Jersey, with the call letters WJZ, a 3,000-W station owned by the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company transmitting at 833 kHz. Two years later it moved into New York City and was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America(RCA), which in 1926 created the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). NBC, in turn, established its Blue network with WJZ as the flagship station. The station increased its power to 50,000 W in 1935 and changed its frequency several times, finally settling on 770 kHz in 1941.
