WFDF (AM)

WFDF

Farmington Hills, Michigan United States
Broadcast area	Metro Detroit; Flint; The Thumb
Frequency	910 kHz (HD Radio)
Branding	910 AM Superstation
Programming
Format	Conservative talk radio
Affiliations	ABC News Radio NBC News Radio Fox News Radio Fox Sports Radio Premiere Networks
Ownership
Owner	Kevin Adell (Adell Radio Group, Inc.)
Sister stations	WADL
History
First air date	July 8, 1922; 102 years ago (1922-07-08) in Flint. Moved to Farmington Hills in 2006.
Former call signs	WEAA (1922–1925)
Call sign meaning	Frank D. Fallain (original owner)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	13664
Class	B
Power	50,000 watts (day) 25,000 watts (night)
Transmitter coordinates	42°03′57″N 83°23′39″W / 42.06583°N 83.39417°W / 42.06583; -83.39417
Repeater(s)	104.3-2 WOMC-HD2 (Detroit)
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	910amsuperstation.com

WFDF (910 kHz), which brands itself as 910 AM Superstation, is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Farmington Hills, Michigan, and serving Metro Detroit. The station is owned and operated by Kevin Adell (via his company Adell Radio Group), who also owns the market's MyNetworkTV affiliate WADL and religious broadcaster The Word Network. It currently airs a conservative talk radio format with programming from ABC News Radio, Fox News Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and Premiere Networks. The studios and offices are on West Ten Mile Road in Southfield, Michigan.

WFDF is a Class B station broadcasting on a regional (not clear-channel) frequency. By day, WFDF transmits with 50,000 watts, the maximum for AM stations in the United States. To avoid interference to other stations on 910 AM, it reduces power at night to 25,000 watts. It uses a directional antenna with an eight-tower array. The transmitter site is on Maxwell Road in Carleton, Michigan.^[2] WFDF transmits in HD and is also simulcast on the second digital subchannel of WOMC.

The station first licensed on May 25, 1922. Its original call sign was WEAA and it was located in Flint. It made its first broadcast on July 8, 1922.^[3] The callsign was changed to WFDF in 1925, in honor of the founder of the station, Frank D. Fallain (1890–1968).^[4]

For many years^[when?] the station featured a full service, middle of the road format of popular adult music, news and sports, targeting Flint. It experimented with a Top 40 rock format (using the nickname "Giant 91") for a time in the early 1970s, but the station shifted its music mix back toward Adult Contemporary by 1975.^[4] In the 1980s, as popular music formats on AM were increasingly shifting to FM, WFDF became an adult standards station aimed at older demographics. The format shifted to talk radio in 1993. By 2001, the station was owned by Cumulus Broadcasting.^{[5][citation needed]}

In 2002, Cumulus sold the station to ABC Radio, a subsidiary of Disney. That August, the station began featuring programming from Radio Disney. In 2003, Disney began preparations to move WFDF to the Detroit radio market. It announced plans for a new eight-tower array in Monroe County, south of Detroit.^[6] Originally, Disney applied to use the new site only for daytime operation with Flint in the northwest corner of the proposed daytime coverage area. It would continue using the existing transmitter site in Burton, east of Flint, during nighttime hours. (Providing an interference-free nighttime signal to Flint from the Monroe County site, without exceeding the 50,000 watt maximum power limit, would have been practically impossible.) Shortly after WFDF started broadcasting with this two-site operation, Disney applied to change WFDF's city of license to Farmington Hills, a Detroit suburb, with 50,000 watts of daytime power and 25,000 watts at night, both from the Monroe County site.

For this change to take place, two radio stations operating at AM 900 that would have interfered with a relocated WFDF had to be deleted. Disney purchased the AM license of WFRO in Fremont, Ohio, while its FM sister station was spun off to a new owner. In Gaylord, Michigan, WSNQ went silent shortly after its FM station, WMJZ, was spun off to a new owner. With the two AM 900 stations now silenced, this paved the way for WFDF to substantially increase its power and move into the more profitable Detroit radio market.

The new array still covers Flint with a city-grade signal during daytime hours. The FCC granted a license for the new facilities in January 2006.^[7] The city of license changed in February 2006. The former towers in Burton were taken down and dismantled in April 2006.

The station's office is located in Southfield, moving away from Genesee County in the spring of 2006.

On August 13, 2014, Disney put WFDF and 22 other Radio Disney stations up for sale, to focus on digital distribution of the Radio Disney network.^[8][9]

On November 18, Radio Disney Group (the Disney subsidiary that held the license of the station) filed to sell WFDF to Adell Radio Group, Inc., an affiliate of The Word Network, owned by Kevin Adell. Adell also owns TV station WADL channel 38.^[10][11]

On January 20, 2015, The Word Network closed on the purchase of 910 AM at a price of $3 million and changed the programming to its Christian radio format.^[10] The changeover took place with no prior announcement at 5 p.m. on January 20.^[12] WFDF was the last Michigan-based Disney O&O broadcast station.^{[citation needed]}

On November 9, 2015, Adell re-launched the station as "the Superstation", with an African American talk radio format.^[13] The station later carried ESPN Radio programming in the overnight hours.^[14]

On August 11, 2023, Adell suddenly announced that the station would rebrand to an "all-sports format" with a local morning show host to be named,^[15] though several media outlets speculated that Adell's financial issues (including the sale of WADL-TV to Mission Broadcasting) was a part of him selling off assets during a personal financial crisis.^[16][17] At this time, the station began to carry Fox Sports Radio full-time.^[14]

On September 1, 2023, Adell Media instead announced that WFDF would flip to a conservative talk format on September 5, featuring a local morning show hosted by Justin Barclay (formerly of WOOD), along with most of the standard Premiere Networks daily syndicated schedule, including Glenn Beck, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton, Sean Hannity, and Jesse Kelly, along with several other syndicated programs.^[14]

The format change would place the station in direct competition with WDTK and its similar Conservative talk format.^[18] WFDF has an advantage in terms of signal coverage area^[19][20] over WDTK, having a 50 kW daytime signal (and 25 kW night) that reaches from Monroe through Genesee counties, covering nearly the entire Southeast Michigan radio market and into the city of Flint day and night, giving WFDF cross-market coverage, while WDTK (with its constant 1kW signal^[21]) and its FM translator have coverage that is restricted only into the densely populated areas of Northern Wayne, and southern Oakland and Macomb Counties.

WFDF formerly had a thirty-person staff during Adell's ownership. In the fall of 2017, the station hired reporters Andre Ash, Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley,^[22] and Steve Neavling, editor and publisher of the investigative news site MotorCityMuckraker.com.^[23]

On October 5, 2016, morning show host Ralph Godbee quit in the middle of his show because of a content dispute over programming conflicts the two had regarding the Word Network.^[24]

• Media in Detroit

• Facility details for Facility ID 13664 (WFDF) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
• WFDF in Nielsen Audio's AM station database
• The Official 910 AM Superstation website
• WFDF history from The Uncommon Sense^{[permanent dead link‍]}
• WFDF sold for 3m USD