WKAL

WKAL (1450 AM; "Talkradio 1450") is a radio station licensed to Rome, New York, USA, and serving the Utica-Rome radio market. The station is owned by Tune In Broadcasting, LLC, a company based in Santa Clarita, California. It broadcasts a talk radio format, with an emphasis toward Rome-area sports.

History

WKAL signed on November 25, 1946 as a Mutual affiliate owned by the Copper City Broadcasting Corporation. Copper City Broadcasting was itself owned by Myron Kallet, who also controlled a chain of theaters that included the Capitol Theatre in Rome, where WKAL placed its studios. The station was the second station in Utica-Rome, after WIBX (which had already been on the air for two decades). Kallet would also expand into television on December 1, 1949, when WKTV (then at channel 13; later on channel 2) went on the air from Utica.

In 1958, Kallet sold WKAL and WKTV to a group led by Paul Harron and Gordon Gray, who had previously owned WIBG AM-FM in Philadelphia and WPFH in Wilmington, Delaware. The group, Mid-New York Broadcasting, changed the station's affiliation to ABC Radio by 1959; it then sold WKAL to Jackson Maurer, former owner of WHKK in Akron, Ohio, in 1961. The sale separated the station from WKTV, which remained under Harron ownership until 1992. In 1962, WKAL reaffiliated with Mutual; by 1964, the ABC affiliation had ceased, and by 1967, the station's studios had left the Capitol Theatre for its transmitter location on South Jay Street. An FM sister station, WKAL-FM, was started in August 1968 on 95.9 FM as a simulcast of the AM station. During this time, WKAL's music programming included blocks devoted to middle of the road music, country music, and top 40. In 1977, WKAL-FM dropped the AM simulcast in favor of beautiful music.