Red Apple Media’s WABC (770 AM) in New York is wrapping up its centennial celebration, commemorating 100 years of broadcasting to the Tri-State area.
The station first signed on the air in October 1921, and WABC hosts, employees and owners have been celebrating 100 years of broadcasting from October 2021 through the end of 2022.
At a centennial celebration several months ago, Red Apple Media and WABC co-owner John Catsimatidis said he brought WABC back to its roots by returning music to the station and hiring well-known talent like Cousin Brucie, who helped bring The Beatles to America.
“I’d play the record again — WABC Radio, exclusive, exclusive,” Cousin Brucie said. ““Every 10 seconds, I’d say it’s a WABC Radio exclusive.”
Cousin Brucie was inducted into the WABC Hall of Fame in 2022, and a studio at the station will be named in his honor in the future. Broadcasters Howard Cosell and Harley Carnes were also inducted into the WABC Hall of Fame.
Listeners can continue to enjoy the WABC centennial by streaming several WABC-produced documentaries on the station’s website, including “Big Events Heard on WABC” and “Overnights,” a look at programs broadcast on WABC during the fringe evening hours.
WABC first saw the light of day from the top of the Westinghouse building in Newark, NJ as WJZ. The call letters WABC were originally on the station that is now WCBS and they stood for the Atlantic Broadcasting Company in Richmond Hill, Queens. CBS ditched those call letters in 1948 due to diary confusion…if a listener wrote that (s)he listened to ABC, did that mean the CBS station or the ABC Network (WJZ). WJZ became WABC on March 1, 1953. The WJZ call letters now reside in Baltimore on the Audacy station. Ironically, Audacy (Entercom) is the company that bought CBS Radio.
It was from WABC that I learned that John Lennon was shot to death on December 8, 1980. I was driving home that night and heard the news bulletin. Hard to believe that it was 42 years ago!