WHJJ

WHJJ
City of license	Providence, Rhode Island
Broadcast area	Southern New England
Branding	Talk Radio 920 WHJJ
Slogan	"For breaking news... and to talk about it"
Frequency	920 kHz
First air date	September 6, 1922
Format	News/Talk
Power	5,000 watts
Class	B
Former callsigns	WJAR
Owner	Clear Channel Communications
Website	920whjj.com

WHJJ (920 AM, "Talk Radio 920") is a radio station in Providence, Rhode Island. The station was previously assigned the call letters WJAR, adopting its current call letters in 1980 when previous owner Outlet Communications sold the station.

History

As WJAR, the station was a charter member of the NBC Radio Network, affiliating with the "Red" network upon its launch on November 15, 1926. In the 1950s, as NBC Radio cut back its programming hours, WJAR began more local programming, playing MOR music with live personality DJ's.

By the 1970s, WJAR's music had become Top-40, where it briefly gave longtime format leader WPRO some competition. Later, WJAR's format eased over to adult contemporary. When Outlet sold WJAR ro buy what is now WSNE-FM in 1980 (ironically, the two are now sister stations), the new owners briefly continued the adult contemporary sound, but eventually went in the direction of talk radio.

In the mid-1980s, WHJJ attempted to shore up its news image by adopting an "All News, All Morning Till 9" format. From 5am to 9am every day (including weekends), WHJJ broadcasted a dual-anchor news, weather, sports, and traffic format. Often, the news anchors would read the exact same copy over and over again. It was very similar to the "Headline News" approach.

In the early 2000s, WHJJ was the Rhode Island affiliate of Air America Radio with the affiliation lasting until 2005. In 2005 and 2006, WHJJ won Associated Press awards for the Massachusetts/Rhode Island area; the 2005 award was for special events coverage of the Democratic National Convention, while the 2006 honor was for news station of the year. In December 2006, WHJJ owner Clear Channel Broadcasting fired afternoon drive veteran Arlene Violet, after sixteen years, as part of a company wide cost cutting measure. As a result, Helen Glover had the only local talk show left on the station's weekday schedule. Also thanks to Clear Channel downsizing, "local" newsbreaks during midday hours are fed from a hub in Syracuse, NY (WSYR) providing local AP headlines.

WHJJ was home to the notorious talk host Steve White in the early 1980s.

The WHJJ news team

• Bill George—Program Director / News Director / Anchor
• Kristen Lessard—Morning Anchor

Programming

WHJJ has been slowly standardizing its lineup with other Clear Channel news talk stations. As of November 2007, only one local show, the Helen Glover Show remains on WHJJ. The rest of the lineup includes standard Clear Channel talk fare, including Glenn Beck Program, The Sean Hannity Show, and Jim Quinn, as well as other syndicated programs such as Mark Levin, Bill O'Reilly, and America in the Morning with Jim Bohannon. Glover's show was moved from 12 Noon–3 P.M. to 8–10 A.M., effective September 17, 2007 when WHJJ acquired the rights to The Rush Limbaugh Show when crosstown rival WPRO ended its more than 20 year run with the program to concentrate on a full local schedule (traditionally, Clear Channel stations have had priority to Limbaugh's program since it is Clear Channel–owned Premiere Radio Networks that syndicates the show).

WHJJ is also radio flagship to the Pawtucket Red Sox minor-league baseball team as well as to football and men's/women's basketball games of the University Of Rhode Island.

External links

• Talk Radio 920 WHJJ
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WHJJ
• Radio Locator Information on WHJJ
• Query Arbitron's AM station database for WHJJ