WCCO (AM)

WCCO (830 kHz) is a Class A clear-channel radio station located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA and owned by CBS Radio. Its studios are located in the CBS Radio Building, 625 Second Avenue South, in downtown Minneapolis. WCCO features talk radio and news programming, with local hosts most hours of the day and night. Its transmitter is located in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. With 50,000 watts of power, and a non-directional signal, WCCO reaches a wide area of North America at night.

From 1947 to 1996, WCCO radio and WCCO-TV (channel 4) won twelve George Foster Peabody Awards, more than any other Twin Cities broadcast outlet.

History

Early years

WCCO began broadcasting in the region on September 4, 1922 as WLAG, known as "the Call of the North", from a hotel near Loring Park in Minneapolis. However, the station soon landed in financial trouble and closed down in 1924. Washburn Crosby Company, forerunner of General Mills, took over the station and renamed it WCCO for the company's initials. Broadcasts resumed less than two months later on October 2, 1924 from its current transmitter site in Coon Rapids.