WBAL (AM)

Sports WBAL is the co-flagship station with WIYY for Baltimore Orioles baseball, Baltimore Ravens football, and Navy Midshipmen football. Since the Baltimore Orioles began their inaugural season in 1954, WBAL has been their flagship station for most of that team's history, though not continuously. For example, it carried Orioles games every season from 1987 to 2006, after which the team's games were broadcast on crosstown sports radio station WJZ-FM. Orioles games returned to WBAL from 2011 to 2014 before the team switched back to WJZ-FM in 2015. On January 5, 2022, it was announced that the Orioles would return to WBAL and sister station WIYY for the 2022 season. The games are also streamed on the respective stations' websites and apps, but with MLB-required georestrictions limiting the broadcast to the entire states of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington DC, the Pennsylvania counties of York, Harrisburg and Lancaster, the West Virginia counties of Grant, Hardy, Mineral, Hampshire, Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson, and most of North Carolina excluding Asheville (which is in the Atlanta Braves' broadcast territory). Ravens games have been broadcast on WBAL and WIYY since the 2006 season. Other teams whose games have been broadcast on WBAL include the Baltimore Colts, the University of Maryland Terrapins, and the Towson Tigers. ==History==

Consolidated Gas Electric WBAL began broadcasting after being dedicated on November 2, 1925. It was a subsidiary of the Consolidated Gas Electric Light and Power Company, a predecessor of Constellation Energy. The initial broadcasting studio was located at the utility's offices on Lexington Street. In the 1930s, WBAL became the flagship station for the international broadcast of radio evangelist G. E. Lowman, whose shows originated in Baltimore until 1959. WBAL was an affiliate of NBC's Blue Network. Among its personalities during that period were program host Jay Grayson, Harley Brinsfield, who had a long-running Saturday night jazz music program, The Harley Show, and White House-accredited newsman Galen Fromme. In the early 1980s, WBAL began running talk shows evenings and overnights, and continued to play some music during the day. News-talk Music gradually decreased, and talk programs were added. In the fall of 1985, WBAL transitioned to its current news-talk format, winning 19 national Edward R. Murrow Awards since then, the most of any local U.S. radio station. HD Radio and translator In addition to its analog 1090 kHz signal, WBAL is also heard on 97.9 WIYY-HD2. In 2021, the station added an FM translator at 101.5 MHz, W268BA so that the station could be heard on FM radios in and around Baltimore. Notable former on-air staff • Allan Prell – Along with Smith, the leading voice of WBAL in the 1980s and 90s. Left the station in 1999, died in 2016. • Dick Purtan – disc jockey and talk host, 1967-68. Originally from Buffalo, New York, he was in Detroit in 1965, then went to Baltimore for a year. Returned to Detroit in 1968, ended career there in 2010. • Ron Smith – died, at the age of 70, on December 19, 2011, after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. • Art Wander – program director who developed WBAL's early 1960s MOR format. Wander left Baltimore by the time of the British Invasion, eventually returning to his hometown (also Buffalo) in the 1980s as a sports talk host. Wander died August 13, 2025, age 97. ==References==