WFAN-FM
WFAN-FM (101.9 FM), also known as Sports Radio 66 and 101.9 FM or The Fan, is a sports radio station located in New York City. The station is owned and operated by CBS Radio, and has simulcast CBS' sports radio station, WFAN (660 AM), since November 1, 2012. WFAN-FM operates within the combined CBS Radio facility in New York's West Village neighborhood, and broadcasts from a transmitter located at the Empire State Building.
Early years
The station first went on the air in 1945 as WGHF, named after its original owner, William G.H. Finch, and moved to the 101.9 frequency in 1947. In late 1948, it became the New York City affiliate of the farm-oriented Rural Radio Network based in Ithaca, New York, which owned a group of upstate stations that would later associate with WQXR. In 1955, its then-owner, Muzak, changed the call letters to WBFM.
The WPIX-FM era
After the station was purchased by the New York Daily News in late 1963, WBFM adopted the WPIX-FM call letters on October 11, 1964, as the station was now co-owned with television station WPIX. The station was run by two Texans, GM Lynn Christian and Program Director Charlie Whitaker, who had achieved top ratings on KODA-FM, Houston. Broadcasting from the "Pix Penthouse" on the 28th floor of the Daily News Building, the WPIX FM format signaled the end of the dominance of beautiful music, fine arts, and block programming on the FM band and ushered in what was to become one of the most popular formats in FM radio history, Easy Listening (later Adult Contemporary). After Christian and Whitaker left New York in 1968 to run a group of stations, WPIX became famous for not being able to settle on a format for any real length of time, and was derisively nicknamed "the format of the month station" by many in the New York City radio industry, as it went through 11 different formats during its post-easy listening period:
