WSPD

History

WSPD is Toledo's longest running radio station, originally started on-air as WTAL in April 1921. It would be purchased by the nascent Storer Communications in January 1928, and was renamed WSPD. The call letters came from "Speedene Oil," a brand of gasoline that Storer Communications' founders, George B. Storer and brother-in-law J. Harold Ryan, owned and marketed. For decades, WSPD was commonly known as "Speedy 1370". Some locals still refer to the station as "Speedy" although that nickname is no longer officially used on the air (recently, traffic reports on WSPD were renamed "Speedy Traffic," a nod to the heritage slogan).

WSPD was the flagship of Storer Broadcasting until 1980, when it was spun off to "WSPD, Inc." Toledo Broadcasting Inc. acquired the station in 1986; eventually it would be sold to Jacor, which sold the station in 1999 to iHeartMedia, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications). In the early 1990s as well as across the country radio consolidation affected the small independent stations, WSPD transitioned from a full-service adult contemporary/MOR station to its current corporate news/talk format - mainly with an extreme partisan conservative focus - and became known as "News Radio 1370 WSPD." The station went by the slogan "News/Talk 1370" from late 2005 until the winter of 2011. The station has since reverted to the "News Radio 1370 WSPD" slogan.

The WSPD call letters were once shared with TV channel 13, when both were commonly owned by Storer Broadcasting. The TV station's call letters changed to WTVG in 1980 when the radio stations were sold off to Wood Broadcasting, and Storer Broadcasting retained control of the TV station.

WSPD has been the flagship station of University of Toledo football and men's basketball since the mid-1960s, heading a network of seven affiliate stations across Ohio, Michigan and Indiana as of December 2016, carrying all home and away games as well as the coach's shows for both sports. The station is also the chief Northwest Ohio affiliate of Cleveland Indians baseball. WSPD carries all weeknight and weekend Indians games that do not conflict with U-T broadcasts. Weekday afternoon games are heard on sister sports station WCWA.

Although only 5,000 watts it had enormous influence in the Toledo market due to unusually high ratings. Some on-air alumni of WSPD include: Connie Desmond, Art Barrie, Jim Ubelhart, Jeanne Overton, Bob Seybold, Randy Huston, Jean Shepherd, Bob Martz, Don Edwards, Neal Carmean, Chuck Parmelee, Ed Hunter, Jerry Keil, Eddie Kootz, Frank Venner, Ron Tindall, Bill Nordstrom, Ted Dalaku, Jim Donkel, Kent Slocum, Jack Mitchell, Mary Beth Zolik (Mitch & Mary Beth in the morning) Ed Burns (who had the station's first overnight country show), Gene Packard, Lee Conklin, Bill Stewart, Jude LaCava, Joe Gunderman, Dave Macy, Lee Kirk, Mike Shepherd, Pat Brogan, Deborah Boyce, Roy E. Blair - News Announcer & Broadcast Standards Manager, Rich Hoffer, Jerry Anderson, Larry Weseman, Art Edgerton, Lou Hebert, Mike Stanley, Paul Stowers, Paul W. Smith, Jim (Ted) Bayer, Doug Bermick, Maggie Moore, Paula Pennypacker, Sean Baligian, Scott Sloan, City Councilman Dennis Lange, Mark Standriff, Dick Scott, Bob Frantz, Denny Schaffer and Brian Wilson.

WSPD was also instrumental in the very early show business days of Toledo-native Teresa Brewer, who sang on the radio station as a child in the 1930s. Deborah Boyce hosted the first, nightly, evening drive-time jazz show in the country on AM radio from 1977-1979.

On September 14, 2007, WSPD began 24-hour HD radio broadcasting. WSPD formerly broadcast in AM Stereo from the 1980s into the 1990s.

On October 21, 2015, WSPD added an FM simulcast on translator W221BG/92.1. While the transmitter was in the testing and measurement phase, it was on and off-air. The former location of this station was in Rudolph, Ohio. The translator is owned by Educational Media Foundation (EMF), owners of Air one and K-Love radio networks. iHeart media leased the translator from EMF. The translator is now W220EM/91.9, simulcasting EMF's WPAY, and iHeart has since moved to a new translator on 92.9 (W225AM).