WDIA

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Coordinates: 35 ° 16 ′ 5 ″  N , 90 ° 1 ′ 3 ″  W.

Map: USA
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WDIA​
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United States

WDIA is a Clear Channel station based out of Memphis , Tennessee .

In 1949 it was the first radio station in the USA in which blacks designed the program and addressed an audience of the same kind. In the mid-1950s, WDIA referred to itself as "The Mother Station of All Negroes" or "The Goodwill Station". For a long time, WDIA established itself as the medium of the African American community in the central southern states , just as it contributed decisively to the spread of rhythm 'n' blues and rock 'n' roll through its selection of music .

Today WDIA belongs to the conservative industry leader iHeartMedia and broadcasts Urban Oldies / Classic Soul Format.

WDIA broadcasts 1070 kHz on medium wave. It is a clear channel station and reduces its transmission power from 50 kW to 5 kW at night. WDIA is simulcasted by KJMS in Olive Branch on VHF 101.1 MHz (100 kW) on HD-2 .

First years and the decision for a "black radio"

The station started operating in 1947 and broadcast the usual mix of country, light classical and catchy pop music with a weak 250 watt transmitter. Compared to established channels with a similar concept and stronger channels, WDIA could not prevail and led a niche existence in Memphis in the first few years. The revolutionary attempt at the time only came about when they were also unable to sell the station for an offer of USD 70,000.

First black DJ in WDIA was the teacher and proven Beale Street presenter Nat D. Williams , who on 25 October 1948 with the mission Tan Town Jamboree started and later Brown America Speaks moderated. Although the station management avoided words like black or negro in order not to provoke the white ruling class in Memphis, Williams saw himself as an explicitly black mouthpiece for his community. Even before he was on the radio, Williams wrote regularly in Memphis World on the problems of blacks in the then strictly racially segregated south. On the radio, too, he then addressed segregation , differences in pay, working conditions for blacks as well as police brutality against blacks. At the same time, however, the white owners Jon Pepper and Bert Ferguson explicitly pointed out to potential advertisers for a few years that they “could possibly get black customers” after advertisements at WDIA.

successes

The success of this show encouraged the white owners Jon Pepper and Bert Ferguson of WDIA to hire more black DJs and to gear their programs towards this audience. In the fall of 1949, blacks moderated all programs, the entire program was geared towards this audience. A few months later WDIA was the most listened to station in the city, in 1949 other stations such as WEDR in Birmingham, Alabama began to copy the concept, with WERD in Atlante the first radio station, which also had black owners, began that same year. By 1955, a three-digit number of radio stations had emerged in the United States, primarily aimed at a black audience. The programs were moderated exclusively by African-Americans, almost all of whom had no previous experience in the radio business and so renounced the usual conventions. They came from the Memphis scene and remained closely connected to it. All leadership positions, however, remained in the hands of whites.

history

Program design 1949–1957

BB King , Rufus Thomas , Martha Jean Steinberg , Bobby Bland and Arnold Moore started their careers at WDIA, among others . Since 1954, the transmitter has been broadcasting over a 50,000 watt transmitter and can thus be reached over a larger part of the southern states . During the day, the program reached around 300,000 blacks, at night, when the radio waves continued to carry, over a million. The program and its DJs were the model for war veteran Dewey Philipps , who was supposed to play a similar program on a white radio station. With the help of a lot of audacity and a burning trash can, he managed to get a nightly moderation post at WHBQ in Memphis, where he put on a program similar to WDIA. A few years later he played the first Elvis Presley single on the radio in this show . Elvis himself appeared at a WDIA festival in 1956. In the segregated south of that time it was an appearance that required some personal courage; Behind the scenes Elvis said that WDIA was his most important contact with rhythm 'n' blues, as it was almost impossible as a white person to get to the places where this music was played.

After the sale in 1957

Pepper and Ferguson sold the station in 1957 for one million dollars to nerd Broadcasting , who directed “black” radio stations across the country according to a relatively uniform concept. The station lost its close connection to the Memphis scene and its role as a talent scout. The station was able to advocate the interests of the Afro-American community, albeit less often than in previous years. For example, the rescue of the Lorraine Motel , where Martin Luther King was murdered, and its conversion into a civil rights museum, was largely due to WDIA DJ Chuck Scruggs .

In 1996 WDIA was sold to the industry giant iHeartMedia .

literature

  • Louis Cantor: Wheelin 'on Beale. How Wdia-Memphis Became the Nation's First All-Black Radio Station and Created the Sound That Changed America . Pharos Books 1992, ISBN 0-88687-633-8 .
  • Steve Cheseborough: Blues Traveling. The Holy Sites of Delta Blues . Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2009, ISBN 1-60473-124-9 , pp. 38-39.
  • Susan J. Douglas: Listening In. Radio and the American Imagination . University of Minnesota Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8166-4423-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KJMS-FM 101.1 MHz Radio Station Information. In: radio-locator.com. Retrieved October 12, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Amanda Petrusich: It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music . Macmillan, 2008 ISBN 0-86547-950-X , pp. 39-41.
  3. ^ A b Marc Fisher: Something in the air: radio, rock, and the revolution that shaped a generation . ISBN 0-375-50907-0 , p. 42.
  4. ↑ a b Mark Anthony Neal: Songs in the key of black life: a rhythm and blues nation . Routledge, 2003 ISBN 0-415-96571-3 , pp. 138-139.
  5. ↑ a b c Douglas p. 237
  6. ^ Robert Jefferson Norrell: The house I live in: race in the American century . Oxford University Press US, 2005, ISBN 0-19-507345-2 , p. 148.
  7. ↑ Jim Carrier: A traveler's guide to the civil rights movement Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003 ISBN 0-15-602697-X p. 322