WNSR
Encyclopedia
WNSR is a Nashville
-area Class D radio
station operating on the AM frequency of 560 kHz. WNSR's majority owner is Randolph Victor Bell, and the station's general manager is former WSM
personality Ted Johnson.
The station broadcasts a mixture of local and national sports events and local and national sports talk shows
. It once served as the "backup" affiliate of the Nashville Predators
NHL
team, originating their games when the primary affiliate, WGFX
-FM, has a conflicting commitment to the Vanderbilt University
sports network. However, the station serves as the affiliate for all Vanderbilt women's basketball games, and select Vanderbilt baseball games (the rest are broadcast on the Internet). The station broadcasts Major League Baseball
games as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network
.
n radio market, particularly on AM stations. It was previously affiliated with ESPN Radio
; however, in 2005, ESPN moved its affiliation to WNFN
(then WNPL), an FM station. WNSR is currently affiliated with Yahoo! Sports Radio (formerly One-On-One Sports and Sporting News Radio).
of Brentwood, Tennessee
in adjoining Williamson County
. Its 4,500-watt daytime signal is transmitted from a four-tower antenna in eastern Williamson County in a north-northeast/south-southeast directional pattern; this is due in part to the 5,000-watt daytime signal of a much older Class B 560 kHz station, WHBQ, just under 200 airline miles away in Memphis
. As a result, WNSR's signal can be very difficult to receive in Nashville's eastern and especially western suburbs, but the station can be heard clearly from as far away as South Central Kentucky
and North
Alabama
between sunrise and sunset. At night, when WHBQ has a 1,000-watt signal, WNSR broadcasts at an even more limited level of power (75 watts) from a nondirectional, one-tower antenna just southeast of downtown Nashville. Thus, the station's nighttime signal does not fully encompass the entire metropolitan area.
. Local progamming includes:
WNSR has employed a number of on-air personalities from Chip Ramsey (1996–2000) to Tennessee sports writer Joe Biddle (2006–present). In between, there have been a plethora of Middle Tennessee sports journalists including the duo of Greg Pogue and David Coleman (a pair which has anchored the morning show since 2002), Greg Ruff, Don West, and Tim Swift (stalwarts in the mid-day slot from 2003 until September 2008), Bill King, Eric Yutzy, and Bob McClellan. The station has also aired a number of national and regional shows, including the Dan Patrick-Rob Dibble
and Tony Kornheiser shows from their ESPN days, and the Tim Brando and the Two Live Stews shows from their current Yahoo! Sports Radio affiliation as well as the Maxed Out Show starring the folksy ex-coach Max Howell.
The network broadcast an early-afternoon show starring former late-night home-shopping network legend and TNA Wrestling announcer Don West and his sidekick Tim Swift. West and Swift (and their weekly guests Bob McClellan, Eric Yutzy, Greg Ruff, and others) were replaced by a duo from then-Sporting News Radio network calling themselves the Two Live Stews. TLS was in turn replaced on Monday, February 16, 2009, by the Thom Abraham Show. (The Abraham show had been recently cancelled on then-ESPN Radio
affiliate, WNFN
, 106.7 The Fan.
Bill King, the drive-time host since 2003 (joined by Joe Biddle in 2006) has been a fixture on Nashville sports talk radio since the mid-1980s, and his candid assessments of the University of Tennessee and Tennessee Titans
have won him a loyal listenership for more than two decades. Biddle first enjoyed talk radio fame as a side-item on Nashville's sports talk ratings juggernaut "Sports Night" with George Plaster
. He joined King in 2006 after an unsuccessful radio bid with Blake Fulton after Biddle and Fulton split with Plaster.
On July 31, 2009, it was announced that WNSR would broadcast Middle Tennessee State University
football and men's basketball games. This affiliation began with the start of the 2009 football season.
The station also broadcast the football games of local private high school Franklin Road Academy
for one year during the 2008 season during their first season with new head coach David Pack. This programming has since been discontinued.
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
-area Class D radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
station operating on the AM frequency of 560 kHz. WNSR's majority owner is Randolph Victor Bell, and the station's general manager is former WSM
WSM (AM)
WSM is the callsign of a 50,000 watt AM radio station located in Nashville, Tennessee. Operating at 650 kHz, its clear channel signal can reach much of North America and various countries, especially late at night...
personality Ted Johnson.
The station broadcasts a mixture of local and national sports events and local and national sports talk shows
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
. It once served as the "backup" affiliate of the Nashville Predators
Nashville Predators
The Nashville Predators are a professional ice hockey team based in Nashville, Tennessee. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League...
NHL
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
team, originating their games when the primary affiliate, WGFX
WGFX
WGFX is a radio station broadcasting on the FM band at 104.5 MHz licensed to the city of Gallatin, Tennessee, but serving the Nashville market as a whole. It is currently branded as 104.5 The Zone, broadcasting a sports talk format. It is owned by Cumulus Media and operates out of studios on Second...
-FM, has a conflicting commitment to the Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
sports network. However, the station serves as the affiliate for all Vanderbilt women's basketball games, and select Vanderbilt baseball games (the rest are broadcast on the Internet). The station broadcasts Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
games as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network
Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network
The Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network is a network of 26 radio stations that air Major League Baseball games of the Los Angeles Dodgers. , 23 stations broadcast games in English, while another 3 broadcast them in Spanish.-English:...
.
History
The station converted to its current format in 1996, with the call letters WYOR (later WHEW), when all-sports programming began its meteoric rise in the North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n radio market, particularly on AM stations. It was previously affiliated with ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio is an American sports radio network. It was launched on January 1, 1992 under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN." ESPN Radio is located at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut...
; however, in 2005, ESPN moved its affiliation to WNFN
WNFN
WNFN is a Top 40 formatted radio station in the Nashville, Tennessee market, broadcasting a Top 40 format.Previously licensed to the affluent Nashville suburb of Belle Meade, and recently obtaining a permit for an increased signal, with a new license based in nearby Millersville, WNFN was...
(then WNPL), an FM station. WNSR is currently affiliated with Yahoo! Sports Radio (formerly One-On-One Sports and Sporting News Radio).
Listening area
WNSR is licensed to the Nashville suburbSuburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
of Brentwood, Tennessee
Brentwood, Tennessee
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 23,445 people, 7,693 households, and 6,808 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 7,889 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 94.63% European American, 1.89% African American,...
in adjoining Williamson County
Williamson County, Tennessee
Williamson County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2010 US Census, the population was 183,182. The County's seat is Franklin, and it is part of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is named after Hugh Williamson, a...
. Its 4,500-watt daytime signal is transmitted from a four-tower antenna in eastern Williamson County in a north-northeast/south-southeast directional pattern; this is due in part to the 5,000-watt daytime signal of a much older Class B 560 kHz station, WHBQ, just under 200 airline miles away in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. As a result, WNSR's signal can be very difficult to receive in Nashville's eastern and especially western suburbs, but the station can be heard clearly from as far away as South Central Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
and North
North Alabama
North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, generally considered to include 12 counties: Cherokee, Colbert, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, Morgan, and Winston, with a combined population of 958,247, or 20.84% of the state's population as...
Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
between sunrise and sunset. At night, when WHBQ has a 1,000-watt signal, WNSR broadcasts at an even more limited level of power (75 watts) from a nondirectional, one-tower antenna just southeast of downtown Nashville. Thus, the station's nighttime signal does not fully encompass the entire metropolitan area.
Programming
WNSR currently is in affilation with Yahoo! Sports Radio (formerly Sporting News Radio), and broacasts several of their national shows throughout the evenings and weekends. The station also broadcasts nationally syndicated program The Jim Rome ShowThe Jim Rome Show
The Jim Rome Show is a sports radio talk show hosted by Jim Rome. It airs live for three hours each weekday from 9 a.m. to noon Pacific. The show is produced in Los Angeles, California, syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, and can be heard on more than 200 affiliate radio stations in the U.S...
. Local progamming includes:
- The Morning Sports Page, hosted by David Pogue and David Coleman.
- The Thom Abraham Show: afternoon drive-time slot.
- The Men's Room, hosted by Jake Wilde.
WNSR has employed a number of on-air personalities from Chip Ramsey (1996–2000) to Tennessee sports writer Joe Biddle (2006–present). In between, there have been a plethora of Middle Tennessee sports journalists including the duo of Greg Pogue and David Coleman (a pair which has anchored the morning show since 2002), Greg Ruff, Don West, and Tim Swift (stalwarts in the mid-day slot from 2003 until September 2008), Bill King, Eric Yutzy, and Bob McClellan. The station has also aired a number of national and regional shows, including the Dan Patrick-Rob Dibble
Rob Dibble
Robert Keith Dibble is a former Major League Baseball pitcher and television analyst.-Personal life:Dibble is a graduate of Southington High School in Southington, Connecticut...
and Tony Kornheiser shows from their ESPN days, and the Tim Brando and the Two Live Stews shows from their current Yahoo! Sports Radio affiliation as well as the Maxed Out Show starring the folksy ex-coach Max Howell.
The network broadcast an early-afternoon show starring former late-night home-shopping network legend and TNA Wrestling announcer Don West and his sidekick Tim Swift. West and Swift (and their weekly guests Bob McClellan, Eric Yutzy, Greg Ruff, and others) were replaced by a duo from then-Sporting News Radio network calling themselves the Two Live Stews. TLS was in turn replaced on Monday, February 16, 2009, by the Thom Abraham Show. (The Abraham show had been recently cancelled on then-ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio is an American sports radio network. It was launched on January 1, 1992 under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN." ESPN Radio is located at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut...
affiliate, WNFN
WNFN
WNFN is a Top 40 formatted radio station in the Nashville, Tennessee market, broadcasting a Top 40 format.Previously licensed to the affluent Nashville suburb of Belle Meade, and recently obtaining a permit for an increased signal, with a new license based in nearby Millersville, WNFN was...
, 106.7 The Fan.
Bill King, the drive-time host since 2003 (joined by Joe Biddle in 2006) has been a fixture on Nashville sports talk radio since the mid-1980s, and his candid assessments of the University of Tennessee and Tennessee Titans
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. They are members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the team began play in 1960 as a charter...
have won him a loyal listenership for more than two decades. Biddle first enjoyed talk radio fame as a side-item on Nashville's sports talk ratings juggernaut "Sports Night" with George Plaster
George Plaster
George Plaster is the former host of The Sports Zone, a daily afternoon sports talk radio program broadcasting on WGFX-FM in Nashville, Tennessee. Plaster had hosted the show since shortly after its 2003 inception, and for ten years prior, hosted SportsNight, a similar program on WWTN-FM...
. He joined King in 2006 after an unsuccessful radio bid with Blake Fulton after Biddle and Fulton split with Plaster.
On July 31, 2009, it was announced that WNSR would broadcast Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University, commonly abbreviated as MTSU, is a public university located in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States....
football and men's basketball games. This affiliation began with the start of the 2009 football season.
The station also broadcast the football games of local private high school Franklin Road Academy
Franklin Road Academy
Franklin Road Academy is a Pre-K-12 private, non-denominational Christian school located in Oak Hill, a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, with approximately 1,000 students. It was established in 1971. Its Head of School is Margaret W. Wade.-Beginnings:...
for one year during the 2008 season during their first season with new head coach David Pack. This programming has since been discontinued.