WINC (1400 AM) is a commercial broadcast radio station licensed to Winchester, Virginia, United States. The station carries a news/talk and sports radio format. Owned by Colonial Radio Group of Williamsport, LLC, WINC serves Frederick and Clarke counties and City of Winchester in Virginia. The station's studios are located in Winchester while the transmitter (shared with WXVA) resides south of the city in nearby Kernstown. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WINC is available online.
Originally known for 80 years under as WINC, the station was launched by Richard Field Lewis, Jr. on June 26, 1941, as Winchester's first radio station. The station remained in the hands of the Lewis family until its sale to North Carolina–based Centennial Broadcasting in 2007. The station's current format, established in 1996, consists mostly of conservative talk programs and top-of-the-hour news from Fox News Radio. Sports programming from the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech are also broadcast. Prior formats include middle of the road music, adult contemporary, and classic hits.
Several milestones have occurred during the station's 80 years of history. WINC was the station on which country music singer Patsy Cline made her debut in 1948, when Cline asked the leader of a "hillbilly band" for a chance to perform with them on air. In the late 1950s, the station's chief engineer, Philip Whitney, designed a CONELRAD alarm device for FM stations to warn listeners in the event of an enemy attack during the Cold War. Whitney also created many of the remote control systems used by radio stations. He was awarded for his work by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1970. WINC had difficulty renewing its license in the early 1970s, as it was airing 22 minutes of commercials per hour—in excess of what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) permitted. The station encountered further trouble in 1988 when a local prosecutor called one of its promotions an "illegal cash lottery"; a judge disagreed. In that same year, the news department at WINC received an Associated Press Broadcasters Association national award for "Best Radio Spot News".
The late 2010s and early 2020s were marked by change spurred by the gradual divestment of Centennial's Winchester stations. WINC began simulcasting full-time over (then WZFC) on January 31, 2018, but this ended in mid-November 2020 when Centennial sold the first WINC-FM, in operation since 1946, to Educational Media Foundation. Following a subsequent sale of a second WINC-FM on and WZFC to Metro Radio, WINC assumed the callsign WZFC on June 30, 2021, with Colonial Radio Group taking over operations via a local marketing agreement on July 1, and consummating the acquisition of the station on October 22, 2021. Colonial Radio owner Todd Bartley later became part of a local group that has since purchased WINC-FM. The station flipped back to its historical WINC call sign on February 25, 2023.
History
Pre-broadcast and launch
Richard Field Lewis, Jr. was a graduate of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He founded WFVA, a radio station in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1939. Before that, he had worked at KFXM in San Bernardino, California, as chief engineer. Lewis filed the initial application for a new station in Winchester, Virginia, with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on November 24, 1940. The application specified a transmitting frequency of 1370 AM, with a power of 250 watts, the maximum permitted for stations operating on "local" frequencies at the time. This application was approved and a construction permit (CP) issued on February 4, 1941. However, the pending implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA) mandated that on March 29, 1941, most stations on 1370 AM would move to 1400 AM, so the authorization specified this adjusted frequency.
In early March 1941, the FCC assigned the station the call sign WINC, derived from the first four letters in Winchester. At 6:57am on June 26, 1941, WINC began broadcasting as Winchester's first radio station. Two weeks later, on July 13, Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd and Governor James Hubert Price attended the dedication of the station. The first announcer on WINC was Grant Pollock, who had been hired as the station's commercial sales manager. Pollock came to Winchester from NBC Radio in Los Angeles. At the time of WINC's launch, Winchester had a population of 12,095, with only 2,968 radios. In June 1941, the station announced it would join the NBC Blue Network the following month.
Throughout the station's existence, WINC's studios have been located at 520 North Pleasant Valley Road in Winchester. The address at launch was 520 Kerr Street, later incorporated into Pleasant Valley Road.
History since launch
World War II Less than six months after the station's first broadcast, WINC carried live descriptions of the attack on Pearl Harbor and President Roosevelt's "Infamy Speech" the following day. With the United States entry to World War II, WINC participated in the war effort on the air and at its studios. The City of Winchester erected an Aircraft Warning Service station, staffed by volunteers, beside the WINC facility. The station aired an hour-long special program called "Virginia Schools at War Mobilization" on February 22, 1943. The program involved approximately 618,000 schoolchildren and teachers from around the state, war-savings staff, and state and civic dignitaries. The special, broadcast live from Mount Vernon, was carried on 13 other Virginia stations and on WWDC in Washington, D.C. WINC participated in another wartime broadcast, this one in late January 1944, to encourage the public to buy War Bonds. A total of $150,525 in bonds were sold during the two-hour program, broadcast on 13 stations in Virginia and one in Washington, D.C.
On June 15, 1945, the NBC Blue Network formally changed its name to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). WINC remained an affiliate of the renamed network. In the same year, C. Leslie Golliday was hired as the station's production manager. Golliday also built and launched two stations of his own: WEPM in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1946 and WCLG in Morgantown, West Virginia, in 1954.
Post World War II
The station began carrying Standard Oil's "Your Esso Weather Reporter" spots on April 22, 1946. The Esso programs included the "latest weather prediction and [a] brief commercial". WINC began carrying programming from the Keystone Broadcasting System (KBS) and Lang–Worth Feature Programs in 1946 and 1948 respectively. Both Keystone and Lang-Worth were electrical transcription networks. Programming from Lang-Worth was removed from the station's schedule in 1951, while Keystone programming remained until 1960. Richard F. Lewis, Jr., launched WINC-FM, sister station to WINC, on November 18, 1946.
A January 1947 contest on WINC was responsible for knocking out the entire telephone system for the city of Winchester. Mark Sheeler, a disc jockey at WINC, gave a "wolf whistle" as the signal for Winchester area "housewives" to call the studio. The first one to reach him would win "a free pair of nylon hose and a $10 handbag". The station received around 4,000 simultaneous phone calls; the first call to get through was from the telephone company. Sheeler was informed that his contest was jamming local phone lines. He quickly made an on-air announcement calling off the contest.
On August 8, 1947, WINC applied to move from 1400 to 950 kHz. In the same application, the station requested an increase in the station's power to 1,000 watts during the day and 500 watts at night. More than two years later, the application was dismissed and WINC remained at its original frequency and power.
Fourteen-year-old country music singer Virginia "Ginny" Hensley, who later became Patsy Cline, began her career by making her broadcast debut on WINC in 1948. Hensley asked "Joltin'" Jim McCoy, the leader of a "hillbilly band" called "The Melody Playboys", about to perform on the station, for a chance to sing with them. She told the band leader, "If you just give me a chance to sing with you, I'll never ask for pay." Cline continued to perform regularly on Saturday mornings on WINC. In 1948 and 1949, respectively, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope visited WINC, where they were interviewed on-the-air. Crosby and Hope were each in town for the city's annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival.
In early 1950, Lewis hired Whittaker Chambers. Chambers was an American journalist (who had previously worked at Time Magazine), Communist Party member, and a former Soviet agent. Chambers was a "principal figure in the Alger Hiss case".
WINC joined the NBC Radio Network (previously named NBC Red) on November 1, 1951, after more than ten years as an ABC affiliate (previously called NBC Blue). WINC rejoined ABC Radio, carrying both networks' programming, on January 18, 1952, but dropped NBC programming in 1953. WINC became one of the flagship members of the Washington Senators Baseball Network, established in May 1952. The station added the long-running Voice of Prophecy program on June 3, 1953. On October 18, 1957, WINC owner Richard F. Lewis, Jr., died, and control of WINC passed to his widow, Marion Park Lewis. Ownership of the station was transferred again on January 31, 1964, from Richard F. Lewis Jr., Inc., a company owned by Marion Park Lewis, to Mid-Atlantic Network Inc., a corporation wholly owned by the Lewis family.
The station applied for and received a construction permit on August 9, 1958, to increase its broadcasting power from 250 to 1,000 watts, both day and night. The FCC approved the application in January 1961 but only for a daytime power increase. In 1959, WINC engineer Philip Whitney designed a CONELRAD alarm device for FM stations. The CONELRAD system allowed for early nationwide warnings in the event of possible enemy attack during the Cold War. Whitney is also credited with creating many of the remote control systems used by radio stations, including the microwave remote control system. The National Association of Broadcasters presented Whitney with its annual Engineering Award on April 7, 1970, for his work.
1960s through 1980s In the 1960s, the station hosted interviews with several prominent figures. Paul Harvey, in town for a speaking engagement, broadcast his "News and Comment" program from WINC studios on April 14, 1962. President Lyndon B. Johnson, visiting for the Apple Blossom Festival in 1964, was interviewed live on the station. The station was the first in Winchester to announce the assassinations of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
While attempting to renew the station's license in early 1971, Mid-Atlantic Network ran into trouble with the FCC due to the quantity of commercials the station was airing. The station was carrying 22 minutes of commercials an hour according to a letter from then-FCC Broadcast Bureau Chief Francis R. Welsh. Welsh said in the letter that the FCC was not convinced the amount of commercials served the community in a positive way. At the time, the FCC allowed no more than 18 minutes of commercials per hour. However, the station's license was ultimately renewed on May 14, 1971.
WINC reporter Archie McKay was one of the first reporters on scene of the TWA Flight 514 accident. The accident, which occurred on December 1, 1974, along the Clarke/Loudoun county line atop Mount Weather, killed all 92 passengers and crew aboard.