On July 22, 1922, WDEL signed on as one of the earliest radio stations licensed in the U.S., and the first radio station in Delaware. Founded by Willard S. Wilson, WDEL was originally only powered at 250 watts, but by the late 1940s, it had been granted an increase to its current power of 5,000 watts. During the Golden Age of Radio, WDEL was an NBC Red Networkaffiliate, carrying its dramas, comedies, sports, news, game shows, soap operas and big band broadcasts. For a time in the 1940s, WDEL was co-owned with another early AM station licensed to Wilmington, WILM. While WDEL carried NBC Red Network programs, WILM aired shows from the NBC Blue Network and the Mutual Broadcasting System. In 1949, WDEL signed on a TV station, Channel 7WDEL-TV. Because WDEL had been a long-time NBC radio affiliate, WDEL-TV became an NBC-TV network affiliate. It also carried programming from the DuMont Television Network. But it was limited in power due to its proximity to two other Channel 7 stations in New York City and Washington, DC. It later moved to Channel 12. The Steinman Family sold Channel 12 in 1955 and it eventually became WHYY-TV, the PBS station for Philadelphia, but still licensed to Wilmington. In 1950, WDEL added an FM station, 93.7 WDEL-FM. At first it simulcast the programming on the AM station. But by the late 1960s, it aired separate programming using the call signWSTW. With the demise of old time network radio in the 1950s, WDEL adopted a full-service format, combining news, sports and middle of the road music. Among its personalities were disc jockeys Dick Graham, Bill Horleman and Arnold Zenker, sports director Bill Pheiffer and news reporters Manning Kimmel , Joe Mosbrook , Burke Hully, Pat Ciarrocchi and top-rated local talk host Craig Butcher. In the mid-1980s, WDEL was the first Wilmington radio station to provide traffic reports. WDEL's "TrafficWatch on the 9s" remains on the air today. In the mid-1990s, WDEL moved to a news/talk format, eliminating music. The station aired a local call-in and information show in the morning, plus various nationally syndicated programs during the day including Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, Mitch Albom and Sean Hannity. In 2006, WDEL's main competitor, AM 1450 WILM, was bought by Clear Channel Communications. Because Limbaugh and Hannity are syndicated by Premiere Networks, an iHeart subsidiary, those shows moved over to WILM. As a result, WDEL adopted a weekday schedule of mostly live and local news and talk, only running syndicated programming in the evening and on weekends. In 2015, Delmarva Broadcasting acquired 101.7 WJKS, licensed to Canton, New Jersey, but with a signal that covers parts of Northern Delaware, including sections of Wilmington. On April 1, WJKS flipped from urban adult contemporary music to a simulcast of 1150 WDEL, giving the station's listeners the option to hear it on AM or FM. The call letters were switched to WDEL-FM, returning that call sign to the air on 101.7 MHz. In early 2019, it was announced that Steinman Communications was selling all Delmarva Broadcasting stations to Forever Media. The deal closed on May 20, 2019.
Awards
WDEL has won several prestigious Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, including national awards in 2007 for Best Website and 2009 for Best Newscast. WDEL has also been named News Operation of the Year by the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association numerous times. In 2004, WDEL was awarded by the National Association of Broadcasters with its prestigious Crystal Award for public service. In 2005, WDEL became one of the first radio stations in the nation to produce web-based news video for its website, WDEL.com. In 2011, WDEL won a prestigious Marconi Award from the National Association of Broadcasters for "Medium Market Station of the Year." In 2014, WDEL's news department won the RTDNA national Edward R. Murrow Award for "Overall Excellence." WDEL also won RTDNA's national Murrow Award for "Best Newscast" that year. In 2016, WDEL again won the Murrow Award for "Overall Excellence."
Simulcast
One FM station simulcasts the programming of WDEL:
