Unsung pioneers of the art include: WLW's Fred Smith ; Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll ( who popularized the dramatic serial ); The Eveready Hour creative team ( which began with one-act plays but was soon experimenting with hour-long combinations of drama and music on its weekly variety program ); the various acting troupes at stations like WLW, WGY, KGO and a number of others, frequently run by women like Helen Schuster Martin and Wilda Wilson Church ; early network continuity writers like Henry Fisk Carlton, William Ford Manley and Don Clark ; producers and directors like Clarence Menser and Gerald Stopp ; and a long list of others who were credited at the time with any number of innovations but who are largely forgotten or undiscussed today.

WGY ( AM 810 103. 1 FM News-Talk WGY ) is a radio station licensed to Schenectady, New York and owned by Clear Channel Communications, broadcasting a news and conservative talk radio format.

Like its Clear Channel sister stations, WGY carries the standardized Clear Channel talker lineup of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin and Coast to Coast AM.

WGY carried ABC News Radio from July 1994 until August 2005, when Clear Channel Communications switched the majority of its news / talk radio stations to Fox News Radio as a boost to that network's launch.

( On Monday, February 6, 2012, WGY began its affiliation with AccuWeather, severing its long-lived ties with The Weather Channel for its hourly and half-hourly weather reports.

To add to their laurels, six years later the Players performed an old spy melodrama titled The Queen ’ s Messenger in the world ’ s first dramatic program to be broadcast simultaneously over both radio and the new medium called television .< ref > McLeod, Elizabeth, Old Time Radio Moments of the Century < www. old-time. com / mcleod / top100. html >; New York Times, “ Play Is Broadcast by Voice and Acting in Radio-Television ,” September 12, 1928, pp. 1, 10 ; Lanza, Joseph, & Dennis Penna, Russ, Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique ( Feral House, 2002 ), p. 155 ; Hawes, William, American Television Drama, The Experimental Years ( University of Alabama Press, 1986 ), p. 155 ; Wilkin, Jeff, “ In 1928, WGY Transmitted First Pictures on Television ,” Daily Gazette, Schenectady, NY, September 11, 2006, p. C1 .</ ref >

The only viewers were newspaper and magazine writers watching the program on a 3-by 3-inch screen three miles away in the WGY studio.

WGY also used the first Condenser microphone, developed by General Electric for radio studio applications, on February 7, 1923.

* May 10 – The first regular schedule of television programming begins in Schenectady, New York by the General Electric's television station W2XB ( the station is popularly known as WGY Television, after its sister radio station WGY ).

That same year, WLW ( in May ) and WGY ( in September ) sponsored scripting contests, inviting listeners to create original plays to be performed by those stations ' dramatic troupes.

Amidst the technical changes, WBZ also began engaging in network activities ; by 1925 it often shared programs with WJZ in New York City ( which Westinghouse had also started in 1921, but sold to the Radio Corporation of America two years later ), and a WBZ special commemorating the 150th anniversary of Paul Revere's " Midnight Ride " was also fed to WRC in Washington, D. C. and WGY in Schenectady, New York.

Other early programming included coverage of the Yale-Harvard football game live from New Haven, Connecticut, the WGY string orchestra live from the State Theater in Schenectady, and talks and presentations by various GE innovators, explorers, state and local officials.

“ Radio station WGY had cornered the market on talk and music by 1928 ,” the Daily Gazette recalled.

During Don Weeks and the WGY Morning News ( weekdays 5: 30-9: 00 AM ), this format is altered in that there are also local news updates at: 20 and: 50 past the hour, sports updates at: 15 and: 45, and " Traffic and Weather on the Eights " to go along with the normal news updates anchored by Chuck Custer and Ali Skinner.

Another WGY weekday local show was hosted by Al Roney ( 9: 00 AM-Noon ); however, he was released and replaced by nationally syndicated talk show host Glenn Beck on February 25, 2010.

Contrary to widespread belief, the " G-E-C " sequence is not a reference to the General Electric Company ( now a minority shareholder in NBC's current parent company ), which did not acquire NBC until 1986 ; however, GE's radio station WGY in Schenectady, New York was an early NBC affiliate, and GE was an early shareholder in RCA, which founded NBC by creating it as a subsidiary.

Handling local talk on the weekends is WGY veteran Joe Gallagher ( 6: 00-10: 00 AM ).

It was popularly known as " WGY Television " after its sister radio station.

* August 22 – Alfred E. Smith accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, with WGY / W2XB simulcasting the event on radio and television.

An important turning point in radio drama came when Schenectady, New York's WGY, after a successful tryout on August 3, 1922, began weekly studio broadcasts of full-length stage plays in September 1922, using music, sound effects and a regular troupe of actors, The WGY Players.

After several late-night test broadcasts, using the experimental call letter 6XG, radio station KGO signed on the air on January 8, 1924, from General Electric's Oakland, electrical facility ( the original two-story brick building, constructed specifically for the station on East 14th Street, still exists on the site ), as part of a planned three-station network comprising WGY in Schenectady, New York, and KOA in Denver, Colorado.

WGY led the way in radio drama.

Hager took him up on it and the troupe performed on the weekly WGY Players, radio ’ s first dramatic series .< ref > McLeod, Elizabeth, The WGY Players and the Birth of Radio Drama < www. midcoast. com /~ lizmcl / wgy. html >; Sterling, Christopher H., & John M. Kittross, Stay Tuned, A History of American Broadcasting ( Lawrence Eribaum, 3rd Edition, 2001 ), p. 88 .</ ref >

In 1923, WGY formed the first radio network with WJZ and WRC, however the station also broadcast programs from rival station WEAF.

Later in 1925, the New York State radio network was formed with WMAK, WHAM, WFBL, and WGY.

WGY became the first radio station in the world to televise a drama on separate radio channels .”

WGY was the flagship station of General Electric's broadcasting group until 1983 when it was sold to Empire Radio Partners, Inc. General Electric also owned pioneering sister stations in television ( WRGB-TV, signed on as WGY-TV in 1928 ) and FM radio ( W2XOY, later WGFM, then WGY-FM, and today WRVE, signed on 1940 ).

As the golden age of radio ended, WGY evolved into a full service middle of the road format, slowly evolving as programming tastes changed.

He was a staff announcer for General Electric's Schenectady, New York stations WGY ( AM ), WGFM ( now WRVE ) and WRGB starting in 1943, and the National Broadcasting Company ( NBC ) from 1952 to 2005.

Top-of-hour newscasts are approximately six to seven minutes long and usually include two minutes of Fox News Radio, award-winning local news, traffic (" WGY All-Day Traffic "), and weather (" WGY Storm Team Forecast "); some weekend newscasts substitute sports for traffic.

In late 2005, WGY began streaming its local shows on their website ( the combination of affiliate contracts and / or hosts with pay services preclude full streaming ).

Three notable former WGY hosts are Mike Gallagher ( who hosted afternoon drive in the mid-1990s before moving to WABC and is now part of the Salem Radio Network ), Mark Williams, J. R. Gach ( controversial shock jock ) and Andrew Wilkow of Sirius Satellite Radio ( who did part of afternoon drive and later late mornings from 2003 – 2006 ).

WGY signed on on February 20, 1922 at 7: 47pm at 360 meters wavelength ( about 833 kHz ), with Kolin Hager at the mike, or as he was known on the air, as KH.

He arrived in Sacramento ( KFBK AM ) in 2000 after on-air stints in San Diego ( XTRA AM ), Tampa ( WFLA AM ), Dayton, OH ( WHIO AM ) and the Capital District of New York ( WGY ).

The new slogan is AM 810 103. 1 FM News-Talk WGY.

# REDIRECT WGY ( AM )

In 1928, then-WMAK joined with General Electric-owned station WGY in Schenectady to demonstrate television technology.

In October 1922, WJZ aired its second World Series, this time feeding it to WGY in Schenectady, New York.

In order to obtain a cleared channel in Schenectady, New York, for what would become the present-day WGY, GE effected a break-down of 790 kHz, whereby WGY ( q. v.

Due to the nature of its signal and antenna placement, KGO broadcasts on a north-to-south axis, keeping itself free from interference originating from WGY during the night-time and overnight hours when the station broadcasts at 50, 000 watts.

As Smith stood outside the capital in Albany, Kell managed to send usable pictures to his associate Bedford at station WGY, which was broadcasting Smith's speech.

WGY was the flagship station of General Electric's broadcast group from 1922 until 1983.

In order to obtain a cleared channel in Schenectady, NY, for what would become the present-day WGY, GE effected a break-down of 790 kHz, whereby WGY would assume the maximum permissible power, and KGO would be lowered in power to 7. 5 kW, which was then lower than the minimum permissible power for a clear channel station, and also was then higher than the then maximum permissible power for a regional channel station.