City Annapolis, Maryland Branding KHZTV Format Top 40 | Broadcast area Baltimore, Maryland Frequency 810 kHz Power 250 watts day | |
WYRE (810 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Top 40 mix of current pop music. Licensed to Annapolis, Maryland, USA, it serves Annapolis and portions of the Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC areas.
The station started out as WASL, then several years later switched call letters to WIPA as it programmed a steady diet of uninterrupted Arthur Godfrey-style ukulele music. Under Jacob Einstein's management tenure, the station switched calls again, to WABW (signalling their coverage of Annapolis, Baltimore and Washington). Still an also-ran in the market, it received somewhat of a bump when it debuted Tony Donald, formerly from cross-town rival WNAV. Donald later surfaced on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, Maryland, at WCEM.
In the sixties the station assumed its present call sign (WYRE) as a Top 40 station featuring air personalities Barry Richards (later to move to progressive music WHMC, Gaithersburg), Kirby Scott (in between stints at WSBA, York, PA and WCAO, Baltimore) and Jack Alix (previously of WEAM and WPGC).
On March 15, 2010, the station became part of the KHZTV network with stations throughout Maryland including WAMD in Harford County and WKHZ in Easton. Considered a multimedia platform with an internet tv channel playing videos and the audio on the networked radio stations, personalities such as Tracy Hart work as VJs.