by the regulators at the Department of Commerce, but station owners were also permitted to make special requests, and a contemporary report commenting on WOWO's distinctive call letters suggested "The trick call letters, it is believed, will add to the novelty of the plant." By choosing WOWO for easy pronunciation as a two-syllable word, in the station had a call sign that exhibited more brevity than even three-letter versions. Despite this, announcers and disk jockeys on WOWO were originally prohibited from calling the station "Wo-Wo" on the air until the late 1960s, when a contest was introduced to identify songs in which the "woe" sound appeared. The WOWO call sign was later back-filled as a tongue-in-cheek acronym: "Wayne (as in Fort Wayne) Offers Wonderful Opportunities". In 1927, WOWO was made a pioneer station joining the CBS Radio Network and remained a CBS network affiliate until 1956. In 1928, Keen sold WOWO to Fred Zieg, who also owned WGL. In 1929, Zieg received government approval to move WOWO to 1190 kHz with a power of 10,000 watts and to move WGL over to WOWO's former 1320 kHz. Until WOWO's purchase by Westinghouse in 1936, Zieg managed the advertising sales of both WOWO and WGL through WOWO-WGL Sales Service, Inc. On July 4, 1929, the building housing WOWO and WGL caught fire. No casualties were reported, and operations were moved to a nearby location; amazingly enough, the station's large pipe organ, a familiar sound on the station, was not damaged in the blaze. Operations were resumed the following day, and the WOWO pipe organ was later relocated to Gospel Temple in Fort Wayne. In 1930, WOWO was the first radio station in the world to broadcast a live basketball game. It is also considered to be the first station to broadcast live Indiana high school sports events. In the 1930s, WOWO launched the music program, Hoosier Hop, which by 1932 was popular enough to be airing nationally on CBS. It continued to air into the 1940s. Among the regular performers on Hoosier Hop in 1946 were the country-western group The Down Homers, which at the time included future rock and roll pioneer Bill Haley as a member. Westinghouse purchase In August 1936, WOWO, along with another Fort Wayne station, WGL, was acquired by Westinghouse Broadcasting as its first purchase of stations it did not put on the air. WOWO joined original Westinghouse