Category:WAEB, Allentown, Pennsylvania

WAEB-AM is a News/Talk radio station serving Allentown. It is owned and operated by the iHeartMedia radio conglomerate. The station broadcasts from the iHeart studios just north of US 22 and MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township.

The station went on the air in April 1949 as an American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network radio station. The WAEB studios were located on the top floor of the Khuns and Shankweiler building at the southeast corner of Center Square, Allentown; it's transmitter was initially located in Eastern Allentown, south of Union Boulevard on Fenwick Street, and its towers were visible near the Boulevard Drive-In theater. The station has operated at 790 Kilocycles since it began broadcasting, broadcasting initially contemporary music along with ABC network radio programs. By the late 1950s, with the demise of network radio, the station shifted to an all-music format of contemporary hits in 1957.

Music Radio 79 WAEB routinely topped the Arbitron ratings in the Allentown area thoughout the 1960s and through the mid-70s playing top 40 music. During this era, it's major on-air personalities were Jay Sands, Ernie Stegler, Tiger Joe McClain, Doug Weldon and Jeff Frank. The station aimed primarily to the under-30 audience with frequent appearances by its broadcasting staff at places such as Dorney Park, local dances, and tying into teenagers with it's "High School Hotline" and "Poolside Report" in the summers with teenage reporters.

WAEB-FM signed on in 1961, initially simulcasting the Top 40 format airing on WAEB-AM. About 1967, WAEB-FM separated from WAEB-AM and became a soft adult contemporary format music station. In 1970, the station changed its call letters to WXKW. In 1976, it changed to a country format.

During the 1970s, many changes came to both WAEB on the AM and FM side. About 1971 WAEB-FM changed its call letters to WXKW returning to the WAEB-FM call leters in April 1985, and reverting to more of a straight Adult Contemporary format becoming Light 104 and beginning to emphasise Oldies.

Starting in the mid-1970s, WAEB faced increased competition from other top 40 stations due to the general migration of Top40 music from AM (Amplitude Modulation) frequencies to FM (Frequency Modulation) stations playing top 40 hits in stereo with a much cleaner broadcasting signal. In 1987, WAEB-AM switched it's contemporary music over to its FM counterpart as Laser 104.1 and celebrated “B” day and became B-104 in 1993. In 1986 WAEB added evening syndicated Talk shows.

Overnight talk was added by 1989 along with Bobby Gunther Walsh who moved from Scranton and joined the station in 1983 as local morning talk host, and by 1993 WAEB had evolved into a Talk Format station carrying syndicated shows, with Walsh being the only locally-based talk host, which it remains today.

In January 2007, after WKAP dropped the Oldies format in favor of religious programming (also changing its call letters to WYHM), WAEB launched an Internet radio station playing Oldies music on its Web site.

The demise of local ownership of many radio stations in the late 1980s meant WAEB and WAEB-FM were sold to CRB Broadcasting in the late 1980s. and in 1995 the stations were sold to Capstar along with WZZO and WKAP. The stations all went to AM/FM Broadcasting as a result of the Chancellor/Capstar merger in 1999. In the early 2000s, it came under the Clear Channel (now iHeart) ownership.