HomeMy WebLinkAboutBen Downs Talks WTAW Frequencies Transcript, WTAW First 100 YearsProject HOLD
WTAW Interview
Ben Downs | WTAW & Bryan Broadcasting General Manager
Tom Turbiville | WTAW Radio Host
Laura Quezada | Transcriber
00:00:00 Dick Bolin (DB)
[Music] College Station, Texas, April 24th, 1947, Dick Bolin talking. Here's the latest news from
the Associated Press…
00:00:07 Associated Press (AP)
He got a touchdown! Oh, doctor!
00:00:10 Speaker 3
…News and Talk, WTAW.
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00:00:12 Tom Turbiville (TT)
This is WTAW, the First 100 Years, I'm Tom Turbiville. Long-time WTAW listeners will find it
hard to believe that it's now been 22 years that you've tuned in to 1620 instead of 1150. We were
at 1150 AM for 59 years, but from 1922 to 1941, well our general manager, Ben Downs, tells us
that WTAW was all over the radio dial.
00:00:41 Ben Downs (BD)
We got a license in October of, uh, 1922, which is kind of why we're celebrating right now; it
was on 830 kilohertz. And then a few months later, they moved us to 1180, and then 1070, and
then to 1110, and then to 1100. And then they moved us to 620; 620 on the dial in the very end of
the 1930s and 1120. And finally, we found our forever home on March 13th, ‘41 at 1150, but that
didn't turn out to be our forever home because on April 5th of 2000, moved over to 1620 on your
AM dial.
00:01:18 (TT)
Now it was 10 years before that, in 1990, the WTAW went from country to talk.
00:01:24 (BD)
When I got here as manager, one of the first things I wanted to do was change our format. We
were country music and, country music on AM still had a home, but it was in decline because
music just wasn't the thing on AM radio, so I wanted to do talk radio. I had some experience with
this guy named Rush Limbaugh, who had done a couple of shows and stations I'd been
associated with, and I knew how wildly popular he was.
00:01:52 (TT)
Well, Rush, of course, is gone now, but we're still talking on WTAW, the First 100 Years.