WURD

WURD is an AM radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It broadcasts at 900 kHz with a talk format primarily targeted to African-Americans, and is currently under the ownership of LEVAS Communications, LP.

History

The station began operations around 1958 as WFLN, serving as a daytime-only AM simulcast of an FM classical station. In the early 1980s the station was sold to veteran Philadelphia broadcaster Frank Ford, who changed the call letters to WDVT and changed the format to talk. Weekday talk show hosts on WDVT included Peter Tilden, Philadelphia Magazine writer Carol Saline, former Philadelphia Bulletin columnist D.I. Strunk and Ford himself. Weekend specialty shows on the station covered subjects ranging from pro wrestling to gay issues. WDVT made little impact in the ratings, and after a few years Ford took the station off the air and returned its license to the owners of WFLN, who sold it to Willis Broadcasting, a Virginia-based religious broadcaster who changed the call letters to WURD. In the 1996 Spanish broadcaster Alfredo Alonso bought the station for $1.5 million and turned it into a Spanish-language operation as WEMG Mega 900. The station became the first property purchased by Alonso who founded Mega Broadcasting that same year. Eventually Mega moved the WEMG call sign to 1310 kHz and sold Mega 900 for $8.5 million in 2002. The new owners reinstituted the WURD call sign. After a period of apparent indecision during which the station aired various types of music and CNN Headline News, management settled on the current talk format.