WQAM

WQAM is one of Florida's oldest radio stations, first signing on the air in February 1921. 1921 in radio WQAM was launched in Miami, Florida by the W.W. Luce of the Electrical Equipment Company, WQAM received the first broadcasting license in Miami being the first broadcast radio station in the State of Florida. In January 1923.[1] The station's early history was related to WFAW, also of Miami, which was licensed to The Miami Daily Metropolis from June 16, 1922, to June 11, 1923.[2] In the beginning, the young station was helped with programming by the newspaper, until the paper ended its participation.[3]

Things were primitive in the early days. Fred W. Barton, president of the Miami Broadcasting Company made many of the electrical parts himself. In 1926, the station increased its power to 500 watts. The station was the first in the United States to install a permanent remote pick-up from the U. S. Meteorological Department. Power was increased to 1,000 watts in 1928, and WQAM became a full-time affiliate of CBS. In 1947, it switched to ABC Radio. In 1948, Barton sold his interest in the station and The Miami Herald assumed entire ownership.[3]

WQAM is famous for its days in the 1960s, under the ownership of Storz Broadcasting, when it presented a Top 40 format and competed vigorously with rival WFUN (at 790 AM). In February 1964, the station interviewed and heavily promoted The Beatles' second and third nationally televised appearances on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show live from the Deauville Hotel in North Beach, Miami Beach. By far Miami and South Florida's preeminent radio station at the time, baby boomers from Jupiter to Key West, and down to Havana, listened to WQAM for the latest in local and American pop music from the 1960s well into the late 1970s. At that time, WQAM was one of the many AM radio stations airing Casey Kasem's American Top 40, and Cuban youngsters used to gather at friend's houses to listen to the countdown of America's most popular songs, especially the 8-hour-long year-end show of Billboard's top 100 songs of the year in which the syndication company that owned the show had put out on vinyl records at a speed of 33 RPM.

On February 29th 1980, Sunshine Wireless bought AM 560 WQAM.[6] WQAM had been a long-time Top 40 station. After many years as a contemporary music station and heavy competition from FM competitors forced the station to switch to a country music format, and was known as Sun Country WQAM but not after running a montage of music, soundbites, and Jingles from PAMS from its Top 40 days. Sunshine Wireless now had an AM country station, with personality DJs, NBC News, and local information. WQAM was known as "56 Country WQAM", in the mid 80's and was successful in the ratings Under the direction of program director Jon Holiday. WQAM had many veteran DJ's for the country format like Mike Bell, Mitch Lewis, Johnny Dolan, Boomer, and George Sheldon- who had his start in radio @QAM in 1986, WQAM shared studios with then-WKQS at 9881 Sheridan Street in Cooper City. In 1986 WQAM would add sports talk programming in the evening hours with Ed Kaplan.

By 1989, the station had been unable to achieve a full share point in the Arbitron surveys with its mix of country music and sports. In 1990, WQAM had abandoned its country music format in favor of the satellite-fed "Kool Gold" service, which aired '50s and '60s music.

Around 1992, WQAM became an all-sports station. Currently, WQAM is the flagship station for the Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers, and University of Miami Hurricanes.

WQAM used to be a Yahoo! Sports Radio affiliate. On January 2, 2013, the station switched to CBS Sports Radio for after-hours programming.[4]

On October 2, 2014, Beasley Broadcast Group announced that it would trade 5 radio stations located in Miami (including WQAM) and Philadelphia to CBS Radio in exchange for 14 stations located in Tampa, Charlotte and Philadelphia.[5] The swap was completed on December 1, 2014.[6]

On December 23, 2015, WQAM was granted a Federal Communications Commission construction permit to move to the WOCN transmitter site and decrease day power to 4,100 watts.[7]

On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with Entercom.[8] The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on the 17th, making WQAM a sister station to fellow sports station WAXY.[9]

On August 2, 2019, Entercom announced that WQAM would re-launch as 560 The Joe on August 5, 2019, as part of a re-alignment of its sports talk lineups. WAXY's ESPN Radio affiliation was swapped to WQAM, clearing The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (as its new flagship station), Stephen A. Smith, and the network's overnight and weekend programming (notwithstanding conflicts with sports play-by-play). In turn, some of WQAM's local hosts were moved to WAXY's lineup, while Marc Hochman and Channing Crowder's afternoon program would be simulcast by both stations (but with an opening hour exclusive to WAXY).[10] Beginning August 17, Hochman and Crowder will be simulcast in full by WQAM as part of a larger realignment of ESPN Radio's schedule occurring that day (which sees Dan Le Batard cut to two hours, and the addition of a new Mike Greenberg-hosted program).[11]

• Hank Goldberg – The Hammer host; now at ESPN
• Jim Mandich – The Mad Dog' host
• Sid Rosenberg – host
• Jon Sciambi – now at ESPN.
• Scott Ferrall – now at SportsGrid
• Michael Irvin – "The Playmaker" host; now an analyst at NFL Network
• Neil Rogers

• Miami Dolphins (1997–2004, 2007–2009, 2016-present)
• Miami Heat (1988–1993, currently on 790 WAXY/104.3 WSFS)
• Miami Marlins (1993–2007, was on 790 WAXY/104.3 WAXY-FM, but is now on 940 WINZ as of November 6, 2013 [12])
• Florida Panthers (1993–2007, 2010–present)
• University of Miami Hurricanes (1999–present)

Notes

Bibliography

• WQAM official website

• WQAM in the FCC's AM station database
• WQAM on Radio-Locator
• WQAM in Nielsen Audio's AM station database

• Rick Shaw Remembers WQAM Tiger Radio (South Florida Radio History article by Rick Shaw)
• WQAM Tribute Site