WERC
WERC is an AM radio station licensed to
Birmingham, Alabama. Its daytime and nighttime power are both 5,000 watts. In 1982, it became the first radio station in Birmingham to convert to a news/talk format. WERC is the home in Birmingham for the syndicated radio shows of
Glenn Beck and
Rush Limbaugh, and is the originating station of the
Paul Finebaum Radio Network, a regionally syndicated afternoon sports call-in show that is also heard on
XM Radio. WERC is owned by Clear Channel. Other stations in the Birmingham market owned by Clear Channel include
WMJJ-FM (96.5),
WDXB-FM (102.5), WQEN-FM (103.7), and
WENN-FM (105.5).
The forerunner of WERC was the first radio station in Birmingham, and the second station in Alabama. In May 1925, WBRC signed on, broadcasting with 50 watts power at 1210 AM. Throughout the 1920's the station increased its broadcast power several times as well as its broadcast frequency. By 1935, the station was affiliated with the
NBC network.
In 1946, WBRC introduced the first FM station in Birmingham. Due to the lack of FM radios in Birmingham, WBRC-FM was not very successful, and was taken off the air two years later. In 1949, the owners of WBRC-AM launched the second television station in Birmingham, as
WBRC-TV made its debut on Channel 4. The local owners of WBRC-AM and TV sold the stations to
Storer Broadcasting in 1953, and four years later, the stations were sold to
Taft Broadcasting.
The advent of television in the 1950's caused network radio programming to decline. By the early 1960's, WBRC was one of two "middle of the road" music stations in Birmingham. It continued in that format until 1972, when Taft Broadcasting sold WBRC-AM and FM to Mooney Broadcasting. Taft retained ownership of the TV station until 1987. The new owners of the radio stations changed the call letters to WERC-AM and FM. WERC-AM was christened "96-ERC", and launched an all-out assault on the market's leading Top 40 station, WSGN (now
WAGG).
For much of the 1970's WERC and WSGN were two of the most listened-to stations in Birmingham. The beginning of WERC's demise as a Top 40 powerhouse came in 1977, when its FM sister station at the time WBRC-FM (106.9) was re-launched as Top 40 WKXX-Kicks 106 (now
WBPT). By 1980, WERC modified its format to adult contemporary music and was known as News Plus 960, WERC. An afternoon drive sports call-in show hosted by future University of Alabama football announcer
Eli Gold was launched in 1981. Competing unsuccessfully against WSGN and WAPI-AM as an adult contemporary station, WERC dropped music in 1982 and adopted its present news-talk format, which it continues with today.
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Official Website of WERC*
Official Website The Paul Finebaum Radio Network
