I have one: My ex-home of Savannah, GA. 3 Stations there were all-newsers
WQQT-AM 1450 (later called WQCN). Carried CNN Radio/Headline News
from October 1982 to March 1984. This became the first NIS station in Savannah.
WSGA-AM 1400 Flipped from "Music Of Your Life" to CNN Headline News (Audio)
from March 1992 to April 1994. After that, the station went silent for a year.
WTKS-AM 1290 (then WCHY) Flipped from simulcasting from its Country-Western FM sister station
on to AP News Radio (i e, "the news station") from 1994 to 1996.
Since then, there are no are al-newsers in Savannah. Only two news-talkers and two sports-talkers (last I checked).
When did Savannah become a major market?
1982, like I mentioned in the listing. Thing is, the first all-news AM station (WQCN) was successful with this one having flipped its Country-Western format to All-News. But in 1984, the station thought that Savannah was ready for a news-talk format. So in March of 1984, the station flipped to that format (and changed its call letters to WWAM). They thought wrong. That proved to be a disaster! Nobody (especially me) in Savannah listened to it, and the station flipped back to its Country-Western format about a year later!
The second one was WSGA-AM 1400 better known back in the day as "The Rockin' 140" and later
"The Music Of Your Life", switch to all-news in 1992 after I got a tip on the phone from a guy at Transtar a few months back saying that a station in Savannah was joining CNN Headline News in March. Then in March, that station was WSGA-AM. It had the format until 1994, and then suddenly one went silent. A year later it came back with a Family/Talk format.
The third and last one was WCHY-AM 1290 (formerly WTOC, WWSA, and now WTKS). After
seven years of simulcasting country music from its FM sister station of the same call letters, WCHY-AM flipped over to an all-news format in 1994 with the then fledgling NIS service, AP News Radio ("the news station") augmented with coverage of college football and basketball. Like the other two previous stations, its format too lasted only two years (1994-1996). After that, the station flipped to ABC's "Real Country" format (1996-1998), then went kid-friendly with Radio Disney (1998-2001) and then finally changed over to news-talk and the call letters to WTKS.
Then after that, I guess the market for the all-news format just, fizzled out.
