SYRACUSE -- Happy 100th Birthday, Syracuse radio! Although there were a few short-lived and arguably more amateur efforts to sign-on sooner, WFBL 1390 was regarded as the Syracuse's first commercial, professional radio station when it debuted at 6:30pm on November 19, 1924.
It's an anniversary your editor almost missed -- so a big thanks is owed to CNYRadio.com's creator and original editor, Scott Jameson for sending a reminder. He shared a link to his 2005 in-depth report, "WFBL: An 80-year Retrospective," on the Internet Archive.
The detailed recap of WFBL's history is well worth the read. It not only covers WFBL, but highlights some of the major format changes and competition that has come and gone over the years elsewhere up and down the Syracuse radio dial, on both the AM and FM bands.
Jameson's look back in time ends 20 years ago, at a time when the WFBL call letters had recently returned to their original home at 1390AM, following about a decade of the station identifying as WDCW.
At the time, then-owner Buckley Broadcasting was making a run against established news/talker 570 WSYR, by installing a news/talk format anchored by former WSYR personalities Bill Colley and Bob McElligot hosting morning drive, and hourly local news updates provided by staff at Time Warner Cable's recently-launched "News 10 Now."
From there:
WFBL has been simulcasting "The Dinosaur" ever since.