to stations located west of the Mississippi River. KFNG operated from a 10-watt transmitter in Wooten's father's home in Coldwater, Mississippi. (Some station histories report a start of broadcasting activities by Hoyt Wooten in September, 1922.) In 1925, the station adopted its current WREC call letters, and later moved to Whitehaven, Tennessee, now a part of Memphis. Consolidation of WREC and WOAN WREC began sharing the 600 AM frequency with WOAN. In 1929 the two stations began joint operations, with WREC moving to studios in the basement of the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis, where it would remain for over 40 years. In 1930, the two stations were formally consolidated with the joint call sign of WREC-WOAN. On May 15, 1933, after the Federal Radio Commission requested that stations using only one of their assigned call letters drop those that were no longer in regular use, WOAN was eliminated and the station reverted to just WREC. WREC was an affilate of the CBS Radio Network. It carried CBS dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and big band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio." In 1956 WREC added a TV station, CBS affiliate WREC-TV 3 (now WREG-TV), and in 1967, it put an FM station on the air at 102.7, WREC-FM (now WEGR). Wooten sold his stations to Cowles Communications in 1963, earning a handsome return on his original investment. As network programming moved from radio to television in the 1960s, WREC switched to a full service, middle of the road format of popular adult music, news and sports. In the 1980s, it began reducing music shows and replacing them with talk shows, until the transition to full time talk was complete in the 1990s. In 1996, Clear Channel Communications acquired WREC and WEGR. Clear Channel changed its name to iHeartMedia in 2014. References External links FCC History Cards for WREC (covering WOAN for 1922-1930 and WREC/WREC-WOAN for 1924-1981) REC American Basketball Association flagship radio stations IHeartMedia radio stations 1922 establishments in Tennessee Radio stations established in 1922 News and talk radio stations in the United States Radio stations licensed before 1923 and still broadcasting