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WCCO is a set of radio and television stations with a storied history spanning more than 80 years that serves the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota. WCCO-AM is a clear channel station broadcasting at 830 kHz, reaching a wide area of North America at night when the frequency is only used by WCCO. In television, WCCO-TV broadcasts on channels 4 (analog) and 32 (digital). The call sign comes from the Washburn Crosby Company (now known as General Mills), which was an early owner.
Radio
The history of WCCO Radio begins with the "Call of the North" station WLAG, which began broadcasting in the region on September 4, 1922. However, the station soon landed in financial trouble and closed down in 1924. Washburn Crosby took over the station and renamed it to WCCO, and broadcasts resumed less than two months later on October 2, 1924. Early broadcasts took place on the frequency of 710 kHz.
In the early days of radio, WCCO was a powerful force in the development of better and more powerful transmitters. In 1928, WCCO changed its frequency to 810 kHz and in 1929 was granted a clear channel license. Construction of a new 50,000-watt tower operating at this freqency was complete by September 1932. In the 1930s, two additional 300-foot towers were added to increase the range of the station's signal, allowing it to be picked up as far away as Hawaii and the Caribbean Sea when atmospheric conditions were right. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) added WCCO to its network in 1937. In 1939, construction of a new transmitter, still at 810 kHz, was completed in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. This is the same tower used today, although the broadcast frequency was changed to 830 kHz just before World War II.
At night, the station's signal typically reaches across 20 U.S. states and about half of Canada, and certain conditions can make the signal stretch much farther—former station announcer Howard Viken says that he once picked up the station while he was stationed at Guadalcanal in 1943.
During those days, WCCO broadcasters were minor celebrities across the Midwest, one of whom—Steve Cannon—had a distinguished broadcasting career spanning nearly six decades. WCCO Radio is known in its home market by its call letters, the phrase "Radio 8-3-0" or the nicknames "'CCO" or "The Good Neighbor", and plays a talk-oriented format, presenting news, opinion and a number of shows throughout the day, with occasional short stories like the station's "Point of Law" program which serves to both entertain and educate the station's listeners about finer points of the American legal system.
As FM stations gained prominence, WCCO experimented with the medium a bit, but only tepidly. Around 1970, WCCO-FM was broadcasting at 2700 watts and only for the minimum number of hours required to keep a license to the frequency. Today, only the AM broadcast remains.
WCCO was the top-rated station in the Twin Cities for decades until shifting demographics and interests finally brought KQRS-FM to the top spot. One sign of the changing times: the well-known farm report was dropped in early 2004, reflecting the fact that many farmers now rely more on the Internet for such information and that the number of farmers in Minnesota has drastically shrunk since the station first began broadcasting.
For several years, WCCO has hosted a weekly radio show with the governor of Minnesota. Jesse Ventura had a show while in office, and successor Tim Pawlenty has followed suit.
Television
In 1952, WCCO Radio merged with WTCN-TV, which had been operational for a few years. The TV channel originated in another radio station, WRHM, which took to the air in 1925. In 1934, two newspapers—the Minneapolis Tribune and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch—formed a joint venture named Twin Cities Newspapers which purchased the station and correspondingly changed the station's call letters to WTCN. WTCN-TV went on the air on July 1, 1949 and became an ABC affiliate.
With the merger with WCCO-AM, WTCN-TV lost its identity and became CBS-affiliated WCCO-TV. The WTCN radio station had remained outside the merger, however, and the WTCN call sign was reborn on television a few years later, again as an ABC affiliate. That station broadcast on channel 11 and eventually became KARE.
In 1954, a live CBS broadcast from the Foshay Tower provided a view an early-morning solar eclipse, the first time such an event had been televised nationally. In 1955, a mobile unit was formed, using a van dubbed the "Blue Goose" which would be used for more than a decade.
WCCO-TV participated in the first transatlantic television broadcast via the Telstar satellite on July 23, 1962 when a mobile crew provided video of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. This video was broadcast across the three major networks of the time: ABC, CBS, and NBC.
The station had broadcast from studios in the Radio City Theater building in downtown Minneapolis since the first WTCN-TV went on the air in 1949. Despite renovations in 1956, the space eventually became too small, so the station moved into a new space at the south end of Nicollet Mall when a new building was finished in 1983. WCCO is the only area station broadcasting from downtown Minneapolis today.
WCCO was purchased by CBS in the 1992, although many believe that the station was mis-managed in the following years.
Until cable television became common in the early 1990s, WCCO was the exclusive carrier of most Twin Cities sporting events (Twins baseball, Minnesota Vikings football, Minnesota North Stars hockey and U of M athletics) on television and radio. Since 1992, however, rival Fox won NFL football from CBS and carried with it the Vikes, and the North Stars skipped town entirely; when hockey returned to Minnesota in the form of the Minnesota Wild, it would affiliate with former hometown independent KMSP. Between the 2003 and 2004 seasons, Twins baseball was spun off of WCCO-TV onto sports network Victory One (co-owned between WCCO and Twin Cities rivals KSTP and KARE), leaving the radio broadcasts with WCCO and the voices of Herb "The Voice of the Twins" Carneal and John Gordon.
WCCO-TV's transmitter is located in Shoreview, Minnesota. The station has also had two affiliate stations in northern Minnesota, including KCCO in Alexandria.
Notable personalities
An early local program broadcast by the station was a children's program named Axel and His Dog, featuring Clellan Card as Axel. In 1954, the first local program to be broadcast in color by the station was an episode of Axel.
Some notable personalities at the station have had long careers. Dave Moore, a Minneapolis native who had worked almost his entire career in the city, did evening newscasts from 1957 until the early 1990s when he moved to a more leisurely schedule broadcasting Moore on Sunday. In 1962 he had helped create The Bedtime Nooz, a satirical view of newscasts that aired on Saturday nights. Another program called The Scene Tonight was created in 1968. Both programs featured meteorologist Bud Kraehlig and other members of the regular station staff. Moore passed away in 1998.
Bill Carlson joined the station in 1959, working in several roles over the years including news anchor, and still provides film reviews as of 2004. Don Shelby joined the station as a news anchor in 1978 and also has done investigative reporting although he quit doing that after one report was heavily criticized. Shelby suffered a stroke in early 2004.
External links
References
- (2001). Radio and Television. (http://www.mplib.org/history/nm2.asp) A History of Minneapolis. Minneapolis Public Library. Accessed September 25, 2004.
- Jeff Baenen (September 24, 2004). Good Neighbor WCCO Radio celebrates 80 years. (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/9753249.htm) Associated Press. Accessed September 25, 2004.
- History of WCCO Tower. (http://www.ci.coon-rapids.mn.us/council/Commissions/Historicalmural/historywccotower.htm) City of Coon Rapids. Accessed September 25, 2004.
- (July 16, 2003). History of WCCO-TV. (http://wcco.com/content/local_story_197124358.html) WCCO. Accessed September 26, 2004.
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