WFCN is an AM radio station broadcasting at 1200 kHz. Licensed to Nashville, Tennessee, it airs a Christian radio format. WFCN is owned by the Chicago-based Moody Bible Institute and it simulcasts its sister station in nearby Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 91.7, WFCM-FM. Programming on WFCN is rebroadcast on FM translator 98.7, W254CK. WFCN operates with 10,000 watts in daytime hours, but because 1200 AM is a clear channel frequency, WFCN must leave the air at night to protect Class A station WOAI in San Antonio. The FM translator, however, is permitted to operate 24 hours a day. History WFCN first signed on the air in December 1968 as 1190 AM, WAMB. It was the brainchild of longtime Nashville broadcaster Bill Barry, who realized in the 1960s that the switch of many popular radio stations to varied youth-oriented formats, frequently from a full-service orientation, was alienating many older listeners, a large segment of whom were nostalgic for the big band sound of 1930s and 1940s popular music and a station that would play it. To some degree, Barry sought to exploit what was termed the "generation gap" between teenagers and parents of that time, with WAMB favoring the latter. The station was originally licensed to the Nashville neighborhood of Donelson. Airing a format called "The Music of Your Life", it was a pioneer of adult standards music. The format eventually spread to hundreds of stations throughout North America. From a small start, Barry decided to eschew mainstream broadcasters' increasing focus then on younger people with a counter-marketing strategy. He and his sales staff instead attracted and cultivated advertisers whose products appealed largely to older listeners – Cadillac automobiles, retirement homes, prepaid funeral plans, and medical services (once the FCC started allowing those providers to advertise). Barry eventually was able to raise the station's daytime power to the legal maximum of 50,000 watts, although the station could not broadcast at night due to the clear channel system of AM frequencies in North America (see above). Barry's station and its programming attracted a small (by mass-market radio standards) but intensely loyal listening audience; WAMB and its advertisers enjoyed the fact that it had little other competition in Nashville radio, except perhaps from some easy listening outlets on FM. Barry served his listeners with hourly news, which began disappearing from many music-format stations once the FCC stopped requiring radio broadcasters to deliver at least five