☞  Welcome. Enter the mic site here. ☜🔒 SSL Verified

Table of Contents

• ↓ Neither the first nor oldest surviving radio station in Akron, WAKR has had the most measured historical impact of any broadcast outlet in the city, especially during its first 50 years. WAKR was signed on by electronics dealer, lawyer, and inventor S. Bernard Berk on October 16, 1940, after a three-year application process and protests from two competing radio stations. An affiliate of Blue Network/ABC Radio with substantial local programming, WAKR’s ratings dominated the market in the 1940s and 1950s, frequently outperforming Blue/ABC affiliates across the country. Regarded as a “talent school,” WAKR employed multiple announcers who found greater success elsewhere, with Alan Freed, Scott Muni, and Art Fleming the most famous of alumni. Freed’s 1950 departure and attempted move to crosstown WADC, which Berk successfully blocked in court, was the first successful usage of the non-compete clause in the broadcast industry. Berk applied for a television license before a regulatory freeze placed what became WAKR-TV on the UHF band, with WAKR’s profits frequently sustaining the TV station. The Knight Newspapers chain, publishers of the Akron Beacon Journal, held a minority stake in Berk’s Summit Radio (dba Group One Broadcasting) for nearly 30 years.
• ↓ Top Alternatives to coutant.org

6-Month Traffic Trend Estimate

Visual representation extracted from coutant.org

Key Topics & Focus Areas for coutant.org:

Neither the first nor oldest surviving radio station in Akron, WAKR has had the most measured historical impact of any broadcast outlet in the city, especially during its first 50 years. WAKR was signed on by electronics dealer, lawyer, and inventor S. Bernard Berk on October 16, 1940, after a three-year application process and protests from two competing radio stations. An affiliate of Blue Network/ABC Radio with substantial local programming, WAKR’s ratings dominated the market in the 1940s and 1950s, frequently outperforming Blue/ABC affiliates across the country. Regarded as a “talent school,” WAKR employed multiple announcers who found greater success elsewhere, with Alan Freed, Scott Muni, and Art Fleming the most famous of alumni. Freed’s 1950 departure and attempted move to crosstown WADC, which Berk successfully blocked in court, was the first successful usage of the non-compete clause in the broadcast industry. Berk applied for a television license before a regulatory freeze placed what became WAKR-TV on the UHF band, with WAKR’s profits frequently sustaining the TV station. The Knight Newspapers chain, publishers of the Akron Beacon Journal, held a minority stake in Berk’s Summit Radio (dba Group One Broadcasting) for nearly 30 years.