from the heavyweight championship bout between Jack Dempsey and Billy Miske on September 6, and, in October, play-by-play accounts as the Cleveland Indians bested the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1920 World Series baseball championship. Weekly vocal concerts were begun on September 23, with Mabel Norton Ayers as the first featured artist."Edison Concerts By Radiophone For Detroit Homes", The Talking Machine World, January 15, 1921, page 46. By late October, the paper was boasting that "hundreds of Detroiters are now the possessors of wireless receiving sets by which they get the news bulletins, music and other features sent out by The News Radiophone", as the station prepared to broadcast returns for that year's presidential election on November 2. Early years The station's costs were borne by the newspaper—there was no advertising until the mid-1920s—and by 1922 the station staff had increased to ten. Performers were not paid, however, the station was able to attract numerous "illustrious persons" to appear over the airwaves from the station's "phonitorium" studio, including Lillian Gish, Fanny Brice, Ty Cobb, and Babe Ruth. The station is believed to be the first to broadcast news reports regularly, and the first to present regularly scheduled religious broadcasts and play-by-play sports reports. In the fall of 1921, the News purchased the DeForest OT-10 transmitter it had been leasing from Radio News & Music, and applied for a "Special Amateur" station license, which would provide better coverage by allowing the station to move to a wavelength less subject to interference. However, on October 13, 1921, the government instead issued the News a "Limited Commercial" license, and early the next month the newspaper announced: "The Detroit News radio station is now operating under a limited commercial license with call letters WBL. The wavelength used is 360 meters [833 kHz] and a special antenna has been erected to use this wave. The station will transmit as before beginning every evening, except Sunday." While this had the desired benefit of now being on a less congested wavelength, it also meant the station's continued use of DeForest equipment was technically in violation of the commercial radio equipment patent rights held by AT&T. This potential problem was soon resolved by the purchase of a 500-watt transmitter from AT&T subsidiary Western Electric, which was installed on January 28, 1922. The new WBL call sign was randomly assigned, and the News found that listeners had trouble hearing it