the Blue Network); the Worcester area would thereafter receive NBC's programming via WBZ in Boston and WBZA in Springfield. On December 31, 1958, WTAG announced that it would leave CBS Radio in June 1959 over the station's opposition to the network's "Program Consolidation Plan"; it was the third station to announce its departure from CBS (after WJR in Detroit and WSAN in Allentown, Pennsylvania) out of an eventual 20 stations, and had been one of eight stations to oppose the plan upon its announcement in October 1958. WTAG would operate as an independent until July 1, 1963, when it rejoined NBC Radio. The station was the radio home of the Boston Red Sox in the Worcester area for forty years, from 1967 to 2006. The Red Sox' Worcester affiliation moved to WVEI and WCRN in 2007. In 1987, after selling the Telegram & Gazette to the owners of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Stoddard and Booth families sold WTAG to the Knight Quality Group for $2.8 million. The sale put WTAG under the same ownership as WSRS; that station had, as WTAG-FM, itself been sold by the Telegram & Gazette to Knight Quality in 1963. By 1989, WTAG was one of only four original NBC affiliates to still be affiliated with the radio network. Knight Quality Stations announced the sale of its eight New England radio stations, including WTAG and WSRS, to Capstar Broadcasting Partners in April 1997; upon assuming control in January 1998, the stations were operated by Capstar's Atlantic Star Communications subsidiary. Capstar and Chancellor Media announced in August 1998 that they would merge (Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst was a major shareholder in both companies); upon the merger's completion in July 1999, the combined company was named AMFM Inc. AMFM was in turn acquired by Clear Channel Communications (forerunner to iHeartMedia) in a deal announced on October 4, 1999, and completed in August 2000. WTAG, which had rejoined CBS in 1993, ended its 14-year affiliation with the network and joined Fox News Radio in February 2007. Over 100 other Clear Channel stations had already been affiliated with Fox News Radio since 2005. Awards In 1945, WTAG received the Alfred I. duPont Award "for outstanding public service in encouraging, promoting and developing American ideals of freedom, and for loyal, devoted service to the nation and to the community" and the Peabody Award "for outstanding contribution to the welfare