WAKR

WAKR (1590 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Akron, Ohio, United States, serving the Akron metropolitan area including Summit and Portage County. Owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc., the station features a full-service and classic hits format known as "Soft Hits 93.5 FM". WAKR's studios are located in Akron's Wallhaven neighborhood, while the transmitter is sited in the city's southeast side. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WAKR is relayed over low-power Akron translator W228EL (93.5 FM) and available online.

Neither the first or oldest surviving radio station in Akron, WAKR has had the most measured historical impact of any broadcast outlet in the city, especially during its first 50 years. WAKR was signed on by electronics dealer, lawyer, and inventor S. Bernard Berk on October 16, 1940, after a three-year application process and protests from two competing radio stations. An affiliate of Blue Network/ABC Radio with substantial local programming, WAKR's ratings dominated the market in the 1940s and 1950s, frequently outperforming Blue/ABC affiliates across the country. Regarded as a "talent school", WAKR employed multiple announcers who found greater success elsewhere, with Alan Freed, Scott Muni and Art Fleming the most famous of alumni. Freed's 1950 departure and attempted move to crosstown WADC, which Berk successfully blocked in court, was the first successful usage of the non-compete clause in the broadcast industry. Berk applied for a television license before a regulatory freeze placed what became WAKR-TV on the UHF band, with WAKR's profits frequently sustaining the TV station. The Knight Newspapers chain, publishers of the Akron Beacon Journal, held a minority stake in Berk's Summit Radio (d/b/a Group One Broadcasting) for nearly 30 years.

The station, and FM adjunct WONE-FM, remained in the hands of the Berk family until 1986, when it was sold to DKM Broadcasting; DKM merged into cable system operator Summit Communications Group the following year. By 1990, U.S. Radio, a Black-operated company headed by Ragan A. Henry, purchased WAKR and WONE-FM. Despite the continued popularity of top-rated morning show hosts Adam Jones and Bob Allen, WAKR's dominance gradually eroded throughout the 1980s due to stiffer competition from FM stations and staffing cutbacks, and resulted in a format switch to talk radio by May 1991. Rubber City Radio Group, organized by WQMX owner Thom Mandel, acquired both stations in 1993 and has owned all three into the present day.

WAKR's format has changed multiple times under Rubber City ownership, beginning with a switch to adult standards in 1994, a second iteration of talk radio in 1997, and a return to standards in 1999 but largely sourced from Westwood One's "AM Only" satellite service. The station segued to oldies in 2006, again to talk radio in 2014, and to classic hits in 2020. In addition to carrying local news reports and top-of-the-hour newscasts from CBS News Radio, WAKR is the Akron affiliate for the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Cleveland Guardians radio networks, as well as the Ohio State Sports Network.