Branding AM 790 Frequency 790 kHz | Slogan Talk and Business First air date June 14, 1922 | |
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City Providence, Rhode Island Broadcast area Providence metropolitan area | ||
WPRV (790 AM, "AM 790") is a radio station located in Providence, Rhode Island. The station is owned by Cumulus Media, and airs a Talk radio format. The station's studios are located in East Providence and the transmitter site is located separately in East Providence just east of the Seekonk River. The station operates at 5,000 watts around the clock and serves the Providence metropolitan area. While its sister station 630 WPRO airs mostly local talk shows, WPRV's schedule mainly comes from nationally syndicated talk programs, much of which are produced by Cumulus Media subsidiary Westwood One.
Contents
Programming
Weekday programming includes Imus in the Morning at the start of the day. Imus is followed by Chris Plante from Cumulus' Washington, D.C. talk station WMAL, Dave Ramsey, Red Eye Radio overnight, and with some local programs in the afternoon. Westwood One national news airs at the top of each hour. WPRV also serves as the Providence affiliate for New York Yankees baseball as well as the Boston Celtics and Brown University Football and Men's Basketball.
History
WPRV was originally WEAN, Rhode Island's first radio station (those call letters now belong to a sister FM station). It was originally owned by the Shepard Stores of Boston, and starting in the late 1920s, receiving programming from sister station WNAC, now WRKO. This would form the cornerstone of the Yankee Network, a regional radio service feeding newscasts and other programs throughout the region.
In the early 1950s, WEAN was sold to the Providence Journal-Bulletin newspaper.
By the 1960s, WEAN was a Middle-Of-The-Road outlet, transitioning to Adult contemporary music by the 1970s. From 1975 to 1977, WEAN was an affiliate of NBC's short-lived News And Information Service, or "NIS," a 24-hour All-news radio network. The station went back to music when NIS folded.
After ownership changes, WEAN changed call letters to WWAZ, with Classical music, then Adult standards under the call letters WLKW.
The station then broadcast a sports format as WSKO ("The Score"), airing local and national sports shows (including ESPN Radio programs), with most programs simulcast with WSKO-FM/99.7 (which was replaced by WEAN-FM, a simulcast of WPRO). The Sports format was discontinued on March 10, 2008. Hosts over the years included John "Coach" Colletto, Andy Gresh, Scott Cordischi, John Rooke, Steve Hyder, Jess Atkinson, Amy Lawrence, Scott Zolak, John Crowe, and Bryan Morry.
After dropping sports, the station took on its current call letters, as well as an Oldies format, largely provided by Scott Shannon's The True Oldies Channel from ABC Radio; The Oldies format was discontinued on April 13, 2009. WPRV moved to a Business News and Talk format, including shows from Bloomberg Radio, although today much of the business programming has been scaled back and replaced with syndicated talk shows.