{ { Infobox radio station
| name = WWJ
| logo = WWJ 950newsradio logo.png
| logo_size = 150px
| city = Detroit, Michigan
| country = US
| area = Metro Detroit
| branding = Newsradio 950 WWJ
| frequency = 950 kHz
| repeater =
| airdate =
| format = All-news radio
| language = English
| power = 50,000 watts
| class = B
| facility_id = 9621
| coordinates =
| callsign_meaning = None. Assigned after requesting a call that could be easily understood.<ref name="call letters">Although later speculation has suggested that the new call letters might have stood for stockholders William and John Scripps, page 82 of the Detroit News 1922 station history, WWJ—The Detroit News, stated that "WWJ is not the initials of any name. It is a symbol." Also, the 1973 book The News of Detroit (page 83) stated: "The observant insider noted that the second two letters were the initials of Will's son. But the similarity in the governmentally issued call letters was just a happy coincidence."</ref> | former_callsigns = 8MK (1920–21)WBL (1921–22) | affiliations = CBS News RadioDetroit PistonsMichigan IMG Sports Network | owner = Audacy, Inc. | licensee = Audacy License, LLC | sister_stations = | webcast = | website = | licensing_authority = FCC }}WWJ''' (950 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to serve Detroit, Michigan, featuring an all-news format known as "Newsradio 950 WWJ". Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station services Metro Detroit, is the market affiliate for CBS News Radio, and the flagship station for the Michigan Sports Network. Operating on a regional broadcast frequency, its studios are in the Panasonic Building in Southfield.
The transmitter site is near Newport. WWJ broadcasts full-time with 50,000 watts, using a five-tower directional antenna system during daytime hours, and its entire six-tower array at night. WWJ has the highest field strength — 7,980 mV/m at a distance of 1 km — in a single direction (nighttime pattern) of any U.S. AM station. With this powerful signal primarily sent to the north, the station can be heard in parts of northern Michigan during nighttime hours, including the Upper Peninsula and Mackinac areas, and much of southern Lower Michigan during the day.
WWJ is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to broadcast in the HD Radio format, and is simulcast on an HD subchannel of sister station WXYT-FM.
On the air for over a century, WWJ began daily broadcasts as the "Detroit News Radiophone" on August 20, 1920, while it operated under an amateur radio license with the call sign "8MK". Over the years the station has claimed the titles of "America's Pioneer Broadcasting Station" and where "commercial radio broadcasting began."
Programming
WWJ is Michigan's only all-news radio station and features "traffic and weather together" every ten minutes "on the eights" around the clock. The exception is during live sporting events, which it often (though not always) includes during its programming. WWJ is the flagship station for Michigan Wolverines football. In cases where there are schedule conflicts, it also carries sports events normally broadcast by its sister stations. (For example, WWJ airs Detroit Tigers baseball games when WXYT-FM is broadcasting Detroit Red Wings hockey.) In these cases the regular news programming can still be heard online.
In March 2005, WWJ began streaming its programming over the Internet. In August 2005 the station began offering podcasts of newsmakers, interviews, and some of the station's feature programming. In August 2006 it began broadcasting in the HD Radio format. WWJ programming was live 24 hours a day until July 2015, when, to cut costs, it began airing pre-recorded reports overnight. By 2016 the station returned to live news around the clock.
History
In her 1960 review of the station's history, Cynthia Boyes Young cautioned that: "The actual beginnings of the Detroit News radio station, later to be known as WWJ, were not recorded at the time, and the story can only be partially pieced together from the reminiscences of radio pioneers." Three years later, Robert Preston Rimes found that "...fragmentary, incomplete, and sometimes, inaccurate histories existed".