WOWO
Encyclopedia
Located in Fort Wayne, Indiana
, WOWO is an independent news/talk radio station transmitting on 1190 kHz at 50,000 watt
s during the daylight hours and 9,800 watts during the nighttime hours. An application is on file with the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) to add a fourth tower to the three tower directional antenna array and increase nighttime power to 15,000 watts. WOWO, whose call letters are pronounced as a two-syllable word rhyming with go-go, has been broadcasting on various AM frequencies since March 31, 1925 and on 1190 kHz since March 29, 1941. WOWO was one of the first radio stations to broadcast in the Fort Wayne area. In 1930, WOWO was the first radio station in the world to broadcast a live basketball game. It is also considered to be the first station to broadcast live Indiana high school
sports events and the first station to be wholly owned by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. WOWO was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting from 1936 to 1982. The WOWO transmitter and its three towers are located along U.S. Highway 24 in Roanoke, Indiana, midway between Fort Wayne and Huntington.
Despite its sale by Westinghouse in 1982, WOWO still uses the distinctive Group W typeface for the call letters in its white on PF-152 red logo.
radio network and remained a CBS affiliate until 1956.
In 1928, Keen sold WOWO to Fred Zieg. In 1929, Zieg received FCC approval to move WOWO to 1160 kHz with a power of 10,000 watts and establish WGL
on WOWO's former 1320 kHz. Until WOWO's purchase by Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1936, Zieg managed the advertising sales of both WOWO and WGL through WOWO-WGL Sales Service, Inc.
On July 4, 1929, the station's studio building caught fire. No casualties were reported, and operations were moved to a nearby location. Amazingly enough, the station's large pipe organ—a familiar sound on the station—was not damaged in the blaze. The WOWO pipe organ was later relocated to Gospel Temple in Fort Wayne.
During August 1936, WOWO was acquired by Westinghouse Broadcasting as its first owned and operated radio station. Westinghouse built new studios for WOWO at 925 South Harrison Street in Fort Wayne, which were completed on May 1, 1937. On that same date WOWO joined the NBC Blue radio network, while maintaining its CBS network affiliation, as multiple network affiliations were common for NBC-Blue affiliates. On March 29, 1941 Westinghouse completed the FCC licensing of WOWO's famous clear-channel broadcasting on 1190 kHz. During and after World War II
, these clear-channel broadcasts made WOWO a popular radio super-station of sorts throughout the eastern United States. Although there were other radio stations in the eastern United States broadcasting on 1190 kHz during daylight hours, they were required by the FCC either to cease broadcasting at sunset or to reduce their transmitted power at sunset to make way for WOWO's clear-channel signal. WOWO's clear-channel license and resulting large audience permitted various owners over the years to consider WOWO their flagship station.
On April 30, 1952, WOWO's studio and offices were relocated to the upper floors of 128 West Washington Blvd. It was here that the station began its famous "fire-escape" weather forecasts, involving obtaining weather conditions from the fire escape ledge. In 1977, WOWO's studios moved to the fourth floor of the Central Building at 203 West Wayne Street in Fort Wayne, where it would remain for the next fifteen years. When the station relocated to the Central Building, the old fire escape was cut into small pieces, encapsulated in lucite and distributed as a promotional paper weight.
Programming for the station changed several times. After dropping its network affiliations in 1956, the station played modern (for the time) music. During its heyday, WOWO was one of North America's most listened-to Top 40 music stations. WOWO continued playing the hits until 1988, when the station resumed playing oldies
. In 1992 the format changed to adult contemporary, and then in 1996, the station switched to a news-talk format which remains to this day.
Fort Wayne being equidistant from Chicago, Detroit and Cincinnati, clear-channel WOWO competed with WLS, WJR, and WLW for the agricultural market. Farmers would have the radio turned on in the milking parlor; research seemed to indicated that it relaxed the cows and produced more milk. In an era when live music was the rule, rather than the exception on the radio, WOWO's Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers proved popular with rural audiences, and eventually WLS, WJR and WLW surrendered the rural audience to concentrate on their urban audiences, leaving WOWO unchallenged for the hinterlands, and giving them the largest audience of any Fort Wayne area station for decades, until FM stations largely displaced AM stations. WOWO could be heard as far away as Florida, especially early in the morning and late at night and many snowbirds listened to WOWO year-around. They shut down the transmitter on Sunday nights, giving Philadelphia station WCAU at 1210 AM a slight ratings boost as sleepless WOWO listeners sought something to listen to.
Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers' "Little Red Barn
" was used as a theme song for Bob Sievers' daily show, and when recorded music became the norm for the station, they continued to have a live show called "Little Red Barn" on Saturdays featuring Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers. Nancy Lee was the wife of Sam DeVincent, music librarian for the station.
Jay Gould spoke to many community organizations, relating the history of WOWO. Initially, the leading station in Detroit (WJR), Chicago (WLS), and Cincinnati (WLW) all competed for farmer listeners with agricultural reports. WOWO, almost equidistant between those three stations eventually captured that demographic, with the other three stations focusing on their urban and suburban areas. This benefitted WOWO as national advertisers saw WOWO as a regional station that would reach well into the backyards of those larger metropolises.
WOWO's clear-channel license permitted WOWO's radio personalities to gain some degree of fame throughout the eastern United States. Announcer Bob Sievers, Farm Director, commentator and folk-philosopher Jay Gould, News Director Dugan Fry, meteorologist Earl Finckle, the "In a Little Red Barn (on a farm down in Indiana)" de facto theme song of WOWO, the Penny Pitch charity fund raisers, sports director Bob Chase's Komet Hockey broadcasts, the weather reports from WOWO's personnel taking a smoking break out on its studio's "world-famous fire escape", and husband-wife hosts of The Little Red Barn Show, music director Sam DeVincent and wife Nancy of "Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers", all were listened to by a total of millions of people from the Great Lakes
to the United States' East Coast
over the years from the 1940s to the 1990s. Other memorable on-air personalities include Ron Gregory, Chris Roberts, Jack Underwood and Carol Ford.
WOWO broadcast 24 hours daily except for Sunday nights, when they nominally shut down for maintenance between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. At that time, there were few other clear signals with music available in the Fort Wayne local area. Philadelphia's WCAU, at 1210 AM, was nominally a clear-channel station, but its signal, weak and static-laden as it was, seemed to be the best option.
Because WOWO's Nighttime Skywave Service caused WLIB
, also 1190 kHz, in New York City
to cease broadcasting at sunset each day and resume broadcasting at sunrise, Inner City Broadcasting bought WOWO in 1994 so that they could transfer WOWO's FCC clear-channel license to WLIB, owned by Inner City Broadcasting. This reduced WOWO's potential audience—referred to as WOWOland—from much of the eastern United States to a much smaller local region in northern Indiana, northwestern Ohio, and south-central Michigan. Before the power reduction, when WLIB signed off at night, WOWO's air signal came booming through the speakers into the WLIB
air studio.
. However, AT&T reported that the United States Air Force used the wrong tape for the test by accident, and initiated an Emergency Action Notification, normally issued by the Office of Civil Defense or the President. This prompted all stations in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, area by order of the FCC to operate under emergency procedures and feed the broadcast from WOWO through their radios. Bob Sievers was at the microphone at WOWO at the time, and he, along with everyone at the studio, had no idea what was going on. When he heard the message from the Air Force, you could hear in his voice that he was very relieved that it was only a mistake.
British singer/songwriter Adrian Evans documented the event in his song "The Great Fort Wayne Mix Up".
. WOWO was the first Fort Wayne station to transmit in AM stereo; it later became the first Fort Wayne AM station to transmit with HD Radio
technology. The station streams its programs over the Internet. The current format of news and talk includes this daily (Monday through Friday) lineup:
Weekend programming includes The Mutual Fund Show with Adam Bold
, The Weekend with Mike McConnell
, The Kim Komando Show and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. There are newscasts every 30 minutes, at the top and bottom of the hour, featuring local, national, and international reports. Amazingly, the newscasts begin with prerecorded introductions by longtime WOWO announcer Bob Sievers, who turned 90 in August 2007. (Sievers died on September 4, 2007.)http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/LOCAL/709040426 Mitch Craig also does station imaging. WOWO utilizes ABC
and FOX
news services, as well as the Associated Press
. In 2006, WOWO became a partner with Indiana's NewsCenter
, which produces newscasts for two Fort Wayne television stations, WPTA-TV (Channel 21) and WISE-TV
(Channel 33). There are regular weather reports from The Weather Channel, as well as weather bulletins from the National Weather Service
. WOWO also broadcasts the Fort Wayne Komets
hockey games and the Indianapolis Colts
football games. Bob Chase announced his retirement as Sports Director of WOWO after 56 years behind the mic, effective June 5, 2009. The 83-year-old Chase remains as the voice of the Fort Wayne Komets heading into his 57th season.
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in the US state of Indiana and the county seat of Allen County. The population was 253,691 at the 2010 Census making it the 74th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Indiana...
, WOWO is an independent news/talk radio station transmitting on 1190 kHz at 50,000 watt
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s during the daylight hours and 9,800 watts during the nighttime hours. An application is on file with the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) to add a fourth tower to the three tower directional antenna array and increase nighttime power to 15,000 watts. WOWO, whose call letters are pronounced as a two-syllable word rhyming with go-go, has been broadcasting on various AM frequencies since March 31, 1925 and on 1190 kHz since March 29, 1941. WOWO was one of the first radio stations to broadcast in the Fort Wayne area. In 1930, WOWO was the first radio station in the world to broadcast a live basketball game. It is also considered to be the first station to broadcast live Indiana high school
Indiana High School Athletic Association
The Indiana High School Athletic Association is the arbiter of interscholastic competition among public and private high schools in the State of Indiana. It monitors a system that divides athletically-competing high schools in Indiana based on the school's enrollment. The divisions, known as...
sports events and the first station to be wholly owned by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. WOWO was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting from 1936 to 1982. The WOWO transmitter and its three towers are located along U.S. Highway 24 in Roanoke, Indiana, midway between Fort Wayne and Huntington.
Despite its sale by Westinghouse in 1982, WOWO still uses the distinctive Group W typeface for the call letters in its white on PF-152 red logo.
History
Established in 1925, WOWO began broadcasting at 500 watts of power on 1320 kHz on March 31, 1925 and was owned by Chester Keen of Main Auto Supply Company; the station was originally located upstairs of the Main Auto. The station's callsign was chosen to start with the letter "W" as required by the FCC for all stations in the United States at the time. During the 1920s, the FCC permitted either three- or four-letter callsigns, with three-letter call signs being preferred for brevity. By choosing WOWO for easy pronunciation as a two-syllable word, in some measure WOWO had a callsign that exhibited even more brevity than even the three-letter callsigns. Despite this, disk jockeys on WOWO were prohibited from calling the station "woe-woe" on the air until the late 1960s, when a contest was introduced to identify songs in which the "woe" sound appeared. The WOWO callsign was later backfilled as a tongue-in-cheek acronym: "Wayne Offers Wonderful Opportunities". In 1927, WOWO was made a pioneer station of CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
radio network and remained a CBS affiliate until 1956.
In 1928, Keen sold WOWO to Fred Zieg. In 1929, Zieg received FCC approval to move WOWO to 1160 kHz with a power of 10,000 watts and establish WGL
WGL (AM)
WGL is an AM radio station located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The station operates on the AM radio frequency of 1250 kHz.The station was the first to broadcast in the city of Fort Wayne. Chester Keen and Lauer Auto founded what was originally called WCWK when it signed on in 1921. Keen bought the...
on WOWO's former 1320 kHz. Until WOWO's purchase by Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1936, Zieg managed the advertising sales of both WOWO and WGL through WOWO-WGL Sales Service, Inc.
On July 4, 1929, the station's studio building caught fire. No casualties were reported, and operations were moved to a nearby location. Amazingly enough, the station's large pipe organ—a familiar sound on the station—was not damaged in the blaze. The WOWO pipe organ was later relocated to Gospel Temple in Fort Wayne.
During August 1936, WOWO was acquired by Westinghouse Broadcasting as its first owned and operated radio station. Westinghouse built new studios for WOWO at 925 South Harrison Street in Fort Wayne, which were completed on May 1, 1937. On that same date WOWO joined the NBC Blue radio network, while maintaining its CBS network affiliation, as multiple network affiliations were common for NBC-Blue affiliates. On March 29, 1941 Westinghouse completed the FCC licensing of WOWO's famous clear-channel broadcasting on 1190 kHz. During and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, these clear-channel broadcasts made WOWO a popular radio super-station of sorts throughout the eastern United States. Although there were other radio stations in the eastern United States broadcasting on 1190 kHz during daylight hours, they were required by the FCC either to cease broadcasting at sunset or to reduce their transmitted power at sunset to make way for WOWO's clear-channel signal. WOWO's clear-channel license and resulting large audience permitted various owners over the years to consider WOWO their flagship station.
On April 30, 1952, WOWO's studio and offices were relocated to the upper floors of 128 West Washington Blvd. It was here that the station began its famous "fire-escape" weather forecasts, involving obtaining weather conditions from the fire escape ledge. In 1977, WOWO's studios moved to the fourth floor of the Central Building at 203 West Wayne Street in Fort Wayne, where it would remain for the next fifteen years. When the station relocated to the Central Building, the old fire escape was cut into small pieces, encapsulated in lucite and distributed as a promotional paper weight.
Programming for the station changed several times. After dropping its network affiliations in 1956, the station played modern (for the time) music. During its heyday, WOWO was one of North America's most listened-to Top 40 music stations. WOWO continued playing the hits until 1988, when the station resumed playing oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
. In 1992 the format changed to adult contemporary, and then in 1996, the station switched to a news-talk format which remains to this day.
Fort Wayne being equidistant from Chicago, Detroit and Cincinnati, clear-channel WOWO competed with WLS, WJR, and WLW for the agricultural market. Farmers would have the radio turned on in the milking parlor; research seemed to indicated that it relaxed the cows and produced more milk. In an era when live music was the rule, rather than the exception on the radio, WOWO's Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers proved popular with rural audiences, and eventually WLS, WJR and WLW surrendered the rural audience to concentrate on their urban audiences, leaving WOWO unchallenged for the hinterlands, and giving them the largest audience of any Fort Wayne area station for decades, until FM stations largely displaced AM stations. WOWO could be heard as far away as Florida, especially early in the morning and late at night and many snowbirds listened to WOWO year-around. They shut down the transmitter on Sunday nights, giving Philadelphia station WCAU at 1210 AM a slight ratings boost as sleepless WOWO listeners sought something to listen to.
Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers' "Little Red Barn
In a Little Red Barn (on a Farm down in Indiana)
"In a Little Red Barn " was a popular song written by Joe Young, Jean Schwartz, and Milton Ager in 1934. It used the same harmonic structure as the 1917 "Back Home Again in Indiana"...
" was used as a theme song for Bob Sievers' daily show, and when recorded music became the norm for the station, they continued to have a live show called "Little Red Barn" on Saturdays featuring Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers. Nancy Lee was the wife of Sam DeVincent, music librarian for the station.
WOWO as a former clear-channel
From 1941 to 1995 WOWO was well-known, in both Indiana and areas to the east, as one of the clear-channel AM stations. This was due to the station broadcasting continuously at 50,000 watts of power both during daylight and nighttime hours. From sunset to sunrise, WOWO's directional antennas were configured to broadcast to the eastern United States. These directional nighttime broadcasts were branded as WOWO's Nighttime Skywave Service, the "voice of a thousand Main Streets". During the 1970s, the station's hourly ID (required by the FCC) stated: "50,000 watts on 1190, WOWO, Fort Wayne, Group W, Westinghouse Broadcasting."Jay Gould spoke to many community organizations, relating the history of WOWO. Initially, the leading station in Detroit (WJR), Chicago (WLS), and Cincinnati (WLW) all competed for farmer listeners with agricultural reports. WOWO, almost equidistant between those three stations eventually captured that demographic, with the other three stations focusing on their urban and suburban areas. This benefitted WOWO as national advertisers saw WOWO as a regional station that would reach well into the backyards of those larger metropolises.
WOWO's clear-channel license permitted WOWO's radio personalities to gain some degree of fame throughout the eastern United States. Announcer Bob Sievers, Farm Director, commentator and folk-philosopher Jay Gould, News Director Dugan Fry, meteorologist Earl Finckle, the "In a Little Red Barn (on a farm down in Indiana)" de facto theme song of WOWO, the Penny Pitch charity fund raisers, sports director Bob Chase's Komet Hockey broadcasts, the weather reports from WOWO's personnel taking a smoking break out on its studio's "world-famous fire escape", and husband-wife hosts of The Little Red Barn Show, music director Sam DeVincent and wife Nancy of "Nancy Lee and the Hilltoppers", all were listened to by a total of millions of people from the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
to the United States' East Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
over the years from the 1940s to the 1990s. Other memorable on-air personalities include Ron Gregory, Chris Roberts, Jack Underwood and Carol Ford.
WOWO broadcast 24 hours daily except for Sunday nights, when they nominally shut down for maintenance between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. At that time, there were few other clear signals with music available in the Fort Wayne local area. Philadelphia's WCAU, at 1210 AM, was nominally a clear-channel station, but its signal, weak and static-laden as it was, seemed to be the best option.
Because WOWO's Nighttime Skywave Service caused WLIB
WLIB
WLIB is an urban contemporary gospel AM radio station located in New York City. WLIB is owned by Inner City Broadcasting Corporation along with sister station WBLS...
, also 1190 kHz, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to cease broadcasting at sunset each day and resume broadcasting at sunrise, Inner City Broadcasting bought WOWO in 1994 so that they could transfer WOWO's FCC clear-channel license to WLIB, owned by Inner City Broadcasting. This reduced WOWO's potential audience—referred to as WOWOland—from much of the eastern United States to a much smaller local region in northern Indiana, northwestern Ohio, and south-central Michigan. Before the power reduction, when WLIB signed off at night, WOWO's air signal came booming through the speakers into the WLIB
WLIB
WLIB is an urban contemporary gospel AM radio station located in New York City. WLIB is owned by Inner City Broadcasting Corporation along with sister station WBLS...
air studio.
1971 Emergency Broadcast System false alarm
On February 20, 1971, NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado was ready to broadcast a normal required weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast SystemEmergency Broadcast System
The Emergency Broadcast System was an emergency warning system in the United States, used from 1963 to 1997, when it was replaced by the Emergency Alert System.-Purpose:...
. However, AT&T reported that the United States Air Force used the wrong tape for the test by accident, and initiated an Emergency Action Notification, normally issued by the Office of Civil Defense or the President. This prompted all stations in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, area by order of the FCC to operate under emergency procedures and feed the broadcast from WOWO through their radios. Bob Sievers was at the microphone at WOWO at the time, and he, along with everyone at the studio, had no idea what was going on. When he heard the message from the Air Force, you could hear in his voice that he was very relieved that it was only a mistake.
British singer/songwriter Adrian Evans documented the event in his song "The Great Fort Wayne Mix Up".
WOWO today
WOWO currently has studios in a broadcast complex on Maples Road, on the south side of Fort Wayne. It has a three tower directional antenna on U.S. Highway 24, just northeast of Roanoke, IndianaRoanoke, Indiana
Roanoke is a town in Jackson Township, Huntington County, Indiana, United States. The population was 1,722 at the 2010 census. Roanoke is governed by a town council. Town offices include the clerk treasurer, utilities department, police department, and volunteer fire department. The town has a...
. WOWO was the first Fort Wayne station to transmit in AM stereo; it later became the first Fort Wayne AM station to transmit with HD Radio
HD Radio
HD Radio, which originally stood for "Hybrid Digital", is the trademark for iBiquity's in-band on-channel digital radio technology used by AM and FM radio stations to transmit audio and data via a digital signal in conjunction with their analog signals...
technology. The station streams its programs over the Internet. The current format of news and talk includes this daily (Monday through Friday) lineup:
- Fort Wayne's Morning News, hosted by Charly Butcher, 5 to 9 a.m.
- Glenn BeckGlenn BeckGlenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
Program, 9:06 to 11:57 a.m. - Rush LimbaughRush LimbaughRush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
Program, 12:06 p.m. to 2:57 p.m. - Pat Miller Program, 3:10 p.m. to 6 p.m.
- Sean HannitySean HannitySean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
, 6:06 p.m. to 9 p.m. - Mark Levin, 9:06 p.m. to midnight
- Coast to Coast AMCoast to Coast AMCoast to Coast AM is a North American late-night syndicated radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics, but most frequently ones that relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was created by Art Bell and is distributed by Premiere Radio Networks. The program currently...
, midnight to 5 a.m.
Weekend programming includes The Mutual Fund Show with Adam Bold
Adam Bold
Adam Bold is an American author and businessman. He is the founder and minority shareholder of The Mutual Fund Store, and host of The Mutual Fund Show, a national weekly talk radio show focused on actively managed mutual fund investments...
, The Weekend with Mike McConnell
Mike McConnell
Mike McConnell is an American talk radio host based in Chicago on WGN. He left 700 WLW in Cincinnati after 25 years in 2010.-Radio program:McConnell started out in radio as Alan McConnell, as a rock music DJ at an album-oriented college radio station WVUD in Dayton, Ohio in the 1970s...
, The Kim Komando Show and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. There are newscasts every 30 minutes, at the top and bottom of the hour, featuring local, national, and international reports. Amazingly, the newscasts begin with prerecorded introductions by longtime WOWO announcer Bob Sievers, who turned 90 in August 2007. (Sievers died on September 4, 2007.)http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/LOCAL/709040426 Mitch Craig also does station imaging. WOWO utilizes ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
news services, as well as the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. In 2006, WOWO became a partner with Indiana's NewsCenter
Indiana's NewsCenter
Indiana's NewsCenter is the collective brand name of the television and news operations in Fort Wayne, Indiana owned and/or managed by Granite Broadcasting Corporation and Malara Broadcast Group under a local marketing agreement....
, which produces newscasts for two Fort Wayne television stations, WPTA-TV (Channel 21) and WISE-TV
WISE-TV
WISE-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for Northeastern Indiana licensed to Fort Wayne. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 18 from a transmitter at its studios on Butler Road in Northwest Fort Wayne. The station can also be seen on Frontier FiOS channel 4 and...
(Channel 33). There are regular weather reports from The Weather Channel, as well as weather bulletins from the National Weather Service
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
. WOWO also broadcasts the Fort Wayne Komets
Fort Wayne Komets
The Fort Wayne Komets are a minor league ice hockey franchise currently a member of the Central Hockey League in the Northern Conference. The team was previously a member of the International Hockey League before it merged into the CHL in 2010...
hockey games and the Indianapolis Colts
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League ....
football games. Bob Chase announced his retirement as Sports Director of WOWO after 56 years behind the mic, effective June 5, 2009. The 83-year-old Chase remains as the voice of the Fort Wayne Komets heading into his 57th season.