WQOF

• 1. Introduction

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  WQOF sits at 1260 AM on the Washington, D.C., dial today, carrying Catholic programming to the capital region. But the transmitter in Silver Spring, Maryland, behind that signal has been broadcasting for longer than most American radio stations have existed. The call letters have changed eight times. The frequency has shifted three times. The formats have ranged from news for shut-ins to Beatles hits to Air Force One campaign stunts. What makes a single radio station survive a century of American media history? And how does a frequency that once attracted an "almost imperceptible audience" stay on the air at all? The answers run from the earliest days of licensed broadcasting to a $750,000 sale in 2019.

• 2. Fifty Watts for Shut-Ins

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  On the 10th of December 1924, the station received its first license. Its debut broadcast came twelve days later, under the call letters WRHF, from a studio on the third floor of the Radio Parlor building at 525 Eleventh Street NW. The transmitter, rebuilt from equipment originally destined for the YMCA at 17th and G Streets NW, pushed just 50 watts at 1170 kHz. The name stood for Washington Radio Hospital Fund.

  From the start, the audience was specific: people the founders called "shut-ins," residents of Washington and its surroundings who could not read newspapers or magazines. The daily broadcasts lasted one hour and consisted, as the station described them, of "current events and short stories." It was a narrow mission, but it grounded the station in a defined community need from its first day on the air.

  The Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, a sweeping reallocation of the American radio spectrum, hit the station in November 1928. The frequency shifted to 1310 kHz, and the call letters changed to WOL. By that point, ownership had already passed through an insurance agent named Leroy Mark, who ran the operation under the name American Broadcasting Company, unrelated to the later television network.

• 3. The Beatles, First in America

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  WOL became a Washington affiliate of the Mutual Broadcasting System and carried Fulton Lewis Jr.'s nightly newscast to the network during radio's golden age. In September 1938, the station boosted its power and moved to 1230 kHz. By March 1941, the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement pushed it again, this time to 1260 kHz, where it has stayed ever since.

  In January 1950, the Federal Communications Commission approved a complicated transaction between Capital Broadcasting and Peoples Broadcasting Corporation, an affiliate of the local People's Drug Stores. The result was a call-sign swap: on the 20th of February 1950, the 1260 frequency took on the WWDC call letters, which would stay there for the rest of the century.

  Under WWDC, the station landed a footnote in music history. In December 1963, it became the first American radio station to air "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles. Radio personalities including Jimmy Dean and Fred Fiske had programs on WWDC during the 1960s. By the 1970s, the station was a moderately popular top 40 outlet before pivoting to adult standards in 1984.

• 4. Air America and Obama 1260

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  Clear Channel Communications absorbed the 1260 AM frequency in 2000 as part of its merger with AMFM, Inc. On the 2nd of April 2001, the standards format ended and the station rebranded under the WWRC call sign with a business news format, inheriting that call sign from 570 AM. A full-time audio relay of CNN Headline News followed in early 2003, timed to the start of the Iraq War. Sports talk arrived that December, and then, on the 17th of January 2005, WWRC became an Air America Radio affiliate carrying progressive talk programming.

  The lineup included Lionel, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Bill Press, Rachel Maddow, and Ron Reagan, among others. The ratings were bleak. The Washington Post described WWRC's December 2006 numbers as "an almost imperceptible audience." By summer 2008 the station was pulling a .4 rating; by winter 2008, a .1.

  Red Zebra Broadcasting purchased WWRC from Clear Channel in a deal announced in 2008. On the 15th of September 2008, the station was renamed "Obama 1260" as an election-season stunt, mirroring the concurrent rebranding of conservative sister station WTNT as "McCain 570." While WTNT dropped its election branding immediately after the vote, WWRC kept the Obama 1260 name past Barack Obama's presidential inauguration on the 20th of January 2009. The Washington Post reported on the 2nd of February 2009 that a switch to business talk would follow within the week. Starting February 9, the station broadcast under the brand "Money 1260," carrying the Business Talk Radio Network along with Ray Lucia and Clark Howard.

• 5. The Answer and a New Mission

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  Salem Communications purchased WWRC in April 2010, took operational control on the 15th of May through a local marketing agreement, and completed the purchase on the 3rd of August. Salem relaunched the station with a conservative talk format and revived the "WRC" branding as "1260 WRC." Before Salem arrived, the station had served as an affiliate for Washington Redskins and Notre Dame football broadcasts, filling schedule gaps from sister stations WTEM and WTNT.

  In late October 2014, on-air promos hinted at another change. On the 4th of November 2014, the station adopted Salem's standard major-market identity as "1260 The Answer," though the programming itself remained unchanged.

  On the 20th of November 2017, Salem transferred the talk programming, the "Answer" branding, and the WWRC call sign across town to 570 AM, which Salem had bought from Red Zebra Broadcasting the prior May. The 1260 frequency spent two weeks running a recorded loop pointing listeners to the new address, then relayed Salem's WAVA-FM as a placeholder. A sale to Immaculate Heart Media was announced on the 25th of March 2019, for a purchase price of $750,000. On the 14th of May 2019, the transaction closed and the call sign became WQOF. Relevant Radio's Catholic programming began that same day, giving the station, after nearly a century of changing hands and changing voices, its current identity.