WREC


WREC is an AM radio station broadcasting a Talk radio format, and calling itself Newstalk 600 WREC. WREC is licensed to Memphis, Tennessee, and serves the Memphis metropolitan area. The station is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. and operates with 5,000 watts day and night. The station also broadcasts on HD radio, on a subchannel of co-owned 102.7 WEGR. The station's studios are located in Southeast Memphis, and the transmitter site is in North Memphis. It is West Tennessee's primary entry point station for the Emergency Alert System.

Programming

WREC airs mostly nationally syndicated shows from Premiere Networks, a subsidiary of parent company iHeartMedia. Weekdays start with This Morning with Gordon Deal. Also heard are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dave Ramsey, Clyde Lewis and Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. In late mornings Glenn Beck from TheBlaze network airs. Nation of Jake, hosted by a DJ from sister station Rock 102.7 WEGR, airs in late afternoons, the only local weekday program. Weekends feature shows on money, real estate, gardening and home improvement, with religious programs heard on Sunday mornings. Nationally syndicated shows from Kim Komando and Bill Cunningham round out the weekend schedule. WREC is an affiliate of the Fox News Radio Network.

Sports

In the fall of 2006, WREC assumed the broadcast rights for the football and basketball teams of the University of Memphis. Before carrying the Tigers, the station had long been the Memphis affiliate for Tennessee Volunteers football and basketball.

History

The station signed on for the first time on September 22, 1922 as KFNG, owned by electrical engineer and radio dealer Hoyt Wooten. The station operated from a 10-watt transmitter in his father's home in Coldwater, Mississippi. In 1925, it moved to Whitehaven, Tennessee and adopted its current call letters. It originally shared the 600 AM frequency with WOAN in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee's first commercial radio station. The two stations merged in 1929, with WREC moving to studios in the basement of the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis, where it would remain for over 40 years.
In 1956 WREC added a TV station, CBS affiliate WREC-TV 3, and in 1967, it put an FM station on the air at 102.7. Wooten sold his stations to Cowles Communications in 1963, earning a handsome return on his original investment.