WJBO

WJBO (1150 AM) is a News/Talk formatted radio station licensed to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The iHeartMedia, Inc. station broadcasts with a transmitter power of 15,000 watts day and 5,000 watts night. Its studios are located east of downtown Baton Rouge near the I-10/I-12 interchange and its transmitter is in Port Allen, Louisiana.

The station was an affiliate of the New Orleans Saints radio network until the 2009 season. It also served as the flagship station for LSU Tigers football and basketball for decades.

History

AM 1150 was originally WAAB and was licensed to Valdemar Jensen, with sponsor The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Louisiana, and it was the first station to receive a 4-letter call sign in 1922. Jensen operated and experimented with the station from the basement of his house on South St. Patrick Street in New Orleans for more than a month before signing off. In 1925, he obtained a federal license for the station, and on February 28, 1926, the call letters changed to WJBO and became the first commercial station in the South, broadcasting still from New Orleans (call letters WAAB later were used by WVEI of Boston. The station was one of the first in the country to broadcast news, working in tandem with The Times-Picayune. Jensen broadcast also from the Roosevelt Hotel and Orpheum Theater, and the station broadcast on 1140 kilocycles. In 1932, he sold the station to the Manship family, who relaunched the station in December 1934 in Baton Rouge at 1420 kc. and 100 Watts. By the early 1940s, the station's frequency was at 1150 and its power jumped from 500 Watts in 1937 to 5,000 in 1941. Originally, the station broadcast from Highland Road in South Baton Rouge, but in 1941, a new studio was built on Florida Street to accommodate the growing station.