The station first signed on the air on March 6, 1958. Its original call sign was WAGE, broadcasting on 1290 kHz.[6] For its first 37 years on the air, WAGE was a
daytimer, powered at 1,000 watts and required to go off the air at sunset to protect other stations on 1290 AM. It was started by
Richard Field Lewis Jr., who also founded
WINC in
Winchester and
WFVA in
Fredericksburg. The original studio and transmitter site was a field behind
Loudoun County High School in Leesburg. To this day, the street on which the studio stood is named Wage Drive.[7]
An anecdotal story claims that
CBS TV and radio host and Leesburg resident
Arthur Godfrey was the original owner, and the call sign stood for Arthur Godfrey Enterprises.[8] In fact, the
construction permit was owned by Lewis and passed to his widow upon his death in 1957. The call sign was reassigned from what is now
WHEN in
Syracuse, New York, and was almost certainly sequential as it had no known meaning in either city.[9] Once built, the station was sold first to William T. Stubblefield and again in 1962 to a group headed by James and Valeria Symington.[10][11]
In 1995, WAGE moved to 1200 kHz, allowing the use of a stronger full-time signal.[6] While WAGE covered local news throughout its history, the format changed over the years, going from
classical music, to
easy listening, to
country music, to
middle of the road.[6]
WAGE was sold to
WUST owner New World Radio Group, through its subsidiary Potomac Radio, Inc., in 2005. Local programming ended in 2007.[7]
Increase in power
On October 29, 2008, WAGE received a permit from the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move to 1190 kHz and increase its power to 50,000 watts. This would require existing station
WBIS, which operated on the same frequency in
Annapolis, Maryland, to
shut down.[5]
On August 2, 2009, WAGE fell silent due to "tough economic conditions" and an ongoing attempt to move the station to AM 1190 and up the power to 50,000 watts.[12] On April 21, 2010, the FCC approved WAGE's application to increase its daytime power to 50,000 watts and its nighttime power to 1,300 watts from different antenna sites, along with the frequency shift to 1190 kHz. The station was also forced to move out of Leesburg as the existing transmitter site was not large enough to accommodate the required towers.[13][7]
China Radio International
The station returned to the air on April 11, 2011, with programming from
China Radio International (CRI), the Chinese state broadcaster,[14] and a designated
foreign mission in the U.S.[15][16][17] The
call sign was switched to WCRW to reflect this programming. On November 2, 2015, it was reported that the FCC would investigate allegations of whether WCRW was controlled by CRI.[18][19] At the same time, the
United States Department of Justice announced an investigation to determine whether CRI was in compliance with legal obligations under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[18]Reuters reported that 60 percent of the station's airtime was leased by a subsidiary of CRI.[20]
WCRW was granted 1,200 watts of nighttime power in 2017, upgrading from
class D to class B in the process. The station received permission to begin test operations at night on May 4, 2018.[21]
New World Radio Group sold WCRW to the unrelated Potomac Radio Group, Inc., partially owned by
Marquee Broadcasting owners Brian and Patricia Lane, in September 2018.[22] The sale was consummated on January 2, 2019, at a price of $750,000.[citation needed]
In January 2022, Potomac Radio Group dropped CRI and changed to a generic
brokered programming format as "New World Radio". This followed an investigation by the
Small Business Administration over the receipt of more than $100,000 through the
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). PPP loans were prohibited for entities subject to the
Foreign Agents Registration Act, under which Potomac Radio registered in December 2021.[23] Potomac Radio's required FARA disclosures revealed CRI and
China Global Television Network had paid the company over $4 million between 2019 and 2021 to broadcast its programming.[24]
Operation by iHeartMedia
On December 30, 2022, WCRW announced that it would end its "New World Radio"
brokered programming; under a three-year
local marketing agreement,
iHeartMedia began operating the station on January 4, 2023, concurrent with a call sign change to WTSD. Potomac Radio Group had previously sold WUST to iHeartMedia in 2020.[25] iHeartMedia used WTSD to launch a sports format, branded as "iHeart Sports DC" and featuring programming from
Fox Sports Radio and
Vegas Stats & Information Network; this programming is also simulcast on the HD2 channel of
WWDC, replacing
talk radio station "WONK-FM".[26]
References
^Broadcasting Yearbook 2010(PDF). ProQuest, LLC/Reed Publishing (Nederland), B.V. 2010. p. D-566. Retrieved July 8, 2015.
^FCC, Federal Communications Commission -.
"EDOCS Search « EDOCS « FCC". apps.fcc.gov.
Archived from the original on October 26, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.