Classical music The station
signed on the air on July 23, 1958. The original
call sign was WFLN. In an era when few radios could receive FM broadcasts, 900 AM served as a
simulcast for
classical music station WFLN-FM 95.7 (now
WBEN-FM). The stations were owned by the Franklin Broadcasting Company with studios on Ridge Avenue in Philadelphia. The two stations were
affiliates of the
NBC Radio Network.
Talk radio In the early 1980s, the station was sold to veteran Philadelphia broadcaster
Frank Ford, ending the classical simulcast. Ford changed the format to
talk and the call sign to WDVT (Delaware Valley Talk). Weekday talk show hosts on WDVT included Peter Tilden,
Philadelphia Magazine writer Carol Saline, former
Philadelphia Bulletin columnist D.I. Strunk and Ford himself. Weekend specialty shows on the station covered subjects ranging from pro wrestling to gay issues. WDVT made little impact in the
Arbitron ratings and had trouble generating a profit. After a few years, Ford took the station
off the air and returned its license to the owners of WFLN-FM. That company then sold it to Willis Broadcasting, a Virginia-based
Christian radio broadcaster, which changed the call letters to WURD. The call sign represented "The Word", a reference to the words in
The Bible.
Spanish hits and black talk In July 1996, Spanish language broadcaster
Alfredo Alonso bought the station for $1.5 million and began playing
Latin contemporary hits as
WEMG, "Mega 900". The station became the first property purchased by Alonso, who founded Mega Broadcasting that same year. Eventually, Mega moved the WEMG call sign to 1310 kHz, and sold 900 AM for $8.5 million in 2001. The new owner,
Walter P. Lomax Jr., reinstituted the WURD call sign. After a period of apparent indecision, during which the station aired various types of music and
CNN Headline News, management settled on the current talk format aimed at Philadelphia's African-American community.
Presidential interview controversy WURD host Andrea Lawful-Sanders resigned from the station after acknowledging that her
post-debate interview with President
Joe Biden included questions pre-selected by Biden's campaign team, which the station informed
CNN on July 7, 2024. Sara Lomax, president and CEO of WURD, said, "The interview featured pre-determined questions provided by the White House, which violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners". ==References==