Technical Profile: WWWL

AM Technical Profile: WWWL

Frequency:: 1350
Format:: Sports Gambling
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] East of US-90 between LA-428 (General Degaulle Drive) and Terry Parkway, just west of Behrman Highway.
Power (ERP):: Day: 5 kW
Night: 480 watts
Antenna:: Nondirectional
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files
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Owned by Audacy
// W225CZ New Orleans, LA
History:: The original calls of this station, WSMB, originially stood for Saenger-Maison-Blanche, and date back to when the station signed on in 1925. The studios were located for many years in the M-B building, downtown, with programming provided by the Saenger Theater. In the 60's and 70's, WSMB was the #1 station in New Orleans with a lineup of local talk show hosts who were heavily involved in the community, and a Middle-of-the-Road music format.

Eventually, the station was beaten out by the more powerful WWL, and it was sold at auction in 1987 to Winton Communications. It remained Talk, with mostly syndicated shows.

The station was sold to the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1996, putting in the same stable as once-competitior WWL. It was used as a dumping ground for talk shows and sports programs that could not fit into WWL's schedule. It changed to an All-Sports format in 1999, the same year Sinclair sold their New Orleans stations to Entercom. In May 2001, the station moved from sports to a News/Talk format with the slogan "Talk Radio 1350". In the winter of 2006 the station changed to the Air America progressive talk network. In the fall of 2006, the station changed calls to WWWL, and began carrying WWL-AM/FM's talk programming on a time-shifted scheme. The historic WSMB calls quickly wound up in Memphis, on their Air America affilate on 680 kHz.; .; The time-shifting arrangement between WWWL and WWL ended at the start of July 2008, when the station picked up ESPN sports from WODT, who dropped sports to go gospel.; On 14 October 2013, the station rebranded as "3WL — Sports, Food and Fun" with a mix of Lifestyle and Sports Talk programs. In early February 2017 the station picked up a new FM translator, W279DF New Orleans. It was announced that with this acquisition, the sports and lifestyle talk would be migrating to 105.3 WWL-FM HD2 exclusively and a new music format would take up residence here, which happened on 10 February 2017 when an R&B format focusing on the 90's through today launched as "The New Hot 103.7". One year after the flip to music, they changed the focus to all Classic R&B, but kept the same branding and website. In the spring of 2018 the translator was moved to 92.9 MHz and given a coverage upgrade to better reach the metropolitan area.

The station applied for a Special Temporary Authority to operate with a non-directional signal at night in October 2019. It was reported that an issue with the feedline to the nighttime directional tower was damaged. The STA was renewed in 2020, and then later they applied to make the single tower nighttime operation permanent in November 2020.

Entercom rebranded as Audacy in March 2021. The station's R&B format moved to WLMG-HD2 and the 92.9 translator went with it in June 2021; this station, in turn, flipped to a Sports Gambling/Betting format as "The Bet New Orleans". Although the branding logos on the company's website still show the 92.9 frequency, it is not using it anymore.

The station was taken off the air for a few days in late August 2021 by Hurricane Ida, returning to the air in early September of that same year.