A century ago, when Betty White was an infant, WSB Radio was born on March 15, 1922, originally owned by The Atlanta Journal.
A vast history of the station resides at Georgia State University and was lovingly curated by former WSB news anchor and talk show host Mike Kananagh, who died of a heart attack in 2009 at age 57.
Here is a decade-by-decade summary of how the station has evolved over the years.
Credit: Lane Bros
Credit: Lane Bros
1920s
When WSB launched, original owner The Atlanta Journal published articles instructing amateurs how to build radios. The station opened with Franz von Suppé's “Light Cavalry Overture.” A sound truck cruised the city, and loudspeakers were set up in Piedmont and Grant parks.
Credit: Courtesy Special Collections and
Credit: Courtesy Special Collections and
It was considered the first radio station to use a slogan: “The Voice of the South.” Early fans of the medium were dubbed “WSB Radiowls.”
By 1925, the station had become a big enough deal to move from the Journal building to its own spacious home on the top floor of the Biltmore Hotel in Midtown.
Credit: AJC FILE PHOTO
Credit: AJC FILE PHOTO
1930s
The station began airing commercials for the first time in 1930. It covered the Great Depression, golfer Bobby Jones and the launch of “Gone With the Wind.”
Gov. James M. Cox of Ohio purchased both the newspaper and the radio station in 1939.
Credit: LANE BRO
Credit: LANE BRO
1940s
World War II led the station to play more news. Among the programs: “Reveille In Dixie,” a weekly dramatic series, to explain the necessity of winning the war; “Camp Crossroads, which broadcast interviews with servicemen from the Atlanta Serviceman’s Center; and “The War Mailbag,” which provided information about life in wartime.
Credit: AJC Staff
Credit: AJC Staff
The station, with a boost from Martha Carson, also launched a popular music program called the “WSB Barn Dance,” featuring what advertisements called “the cream of the hillbilly world.”
WSB radio legends who started this decade included announcer Bob Van Camp, who stayed until 1972, and executive Elmo Ellis, a key figure who worked at the station into the early 1980s.
Credit: LANE BROTHERS
Credit: LANE BROTHERS
1950s
Among the popular shows this decade was “The Kitchen Klub,” where folks like George Crumbley, Bett Johnson, and Lee Morris rated records, drank coffee, and chatted with guests. Van Camp hosted a game show, “It Pays To Listen,” where he played tunes on the organ. “Nightbeat,” an interview program, featured Jerry Vandeventer and became a national phenomenon because the signal carried so far at night.
Credit: Journal photo
Credit: Journal photo
Ellis became program director and gave the station a big boost, dubbing WSB “America’s Radio Active Station.” He hired Aubrey Morris away from The Atlanta Journal to become the station’s first news reporter.
In late 1955, WSB moved into a new building on Peachtree Street nicknamed White Columns, along with the TV station.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
1960s
The station in 1960 purchased a helicopter to cover news and traffic. After a tragic jet crash in France that killed 122 prominent Georgians in 1963, Morris traveled to Paris with Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen and provided radio news reports.
Larry Munson came to WSB in 1966 as play-by-play announcer for the Atlanta Braves and the Georgia Bulldogs. Munson was so popular that many fans would turn down the sound on their TVs and listen to Munson instead. He retired in 2008.
During civil rights protests in 1966, WSB reporter Andy Still was assaulted and a news vehicle overturned by protesters. Two years later, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, station manager Ellis went on air to call for unity, providing a moving tribute to the slain “gentle preacher.”
Credit: AJC staff
Credit: AJC staff
1970s
WSB ran a popular contest called “WSB Mysteree,” in which the audience guessed the celebrity voice. Santa Claus began using the WSB Skycopter to fly to Lenox Square to officially open the holiday shopping season.
WSB newsman Gordon Van Mol entered a burning house and rescued an elderly woman. Ellis recorded the song “Hammerin’ Hank” to honor Hank Aaron as he sought to break Babe Ruth’s home run record. Milo Hamilton and Ernie Jackson captured that historic moment on the air in 1974.
When Jimmy Carter was elected as president in 1976, WSB reporter Peter Maer accompanied him on the flight to Washington.
Skip Caray started his Braves announcing career in 1976, retiring in 2008. Kerry Browning began his 30-year news career in 1978. Kim “The Kimmer” Petersen debuted on WSB in 1974 and stayed until 1991.
Credit: Special
Credit: Special
1980s
Dave Baker, who is still doing his “Home Fix It” show, joined WSB in 1985 as a caller on Bobby Harper’s show, which ran mornings from 1985 to 1991. Meteorologist Kirk Mellish started doing weather forecasts in 1987 and retired last year. Condace Pressley started as a reporter in 1986. Scott Slade signed on as a traffic reporter in 1984 and has been the morning host since 1991.
And legendary southern cooking expert Ludlow Porch set up shop with his call-in “wackos” in 1982, hosting his well-loved show for almost a decade.
Credit: AJC FILE PHOTO
Credit: AJC FILE PHOTO
1990s
By this decade, the station largely dropped music and focused on talk.
The “Talkmaster” Neal Boortz moved to WSB in 1993 and stayed until his retirement in 2013. Other big names who came to the station that decade include Jason Durden, Bob Coxe, Jeff Dantre, Jamie Dupree, “Captain” Herb Emory, Steve Holman, Clark Howard, Sandra Parrish, Walter Reeves, Veronica Waters, Mark Arum and Richard Sangster.
WSB’s radio and TV operations moved to a new building in 1998 next door to White Columns, which was subsequently torn down. The columns were saved and placed in a rear garden of the new buildings.
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
2000s
Herman Cain joined the station as an evening host in 2008, eventually running for president, then taking over for Boortz in 2013.
WSB’s annual Care-a-thon began at the turn of the century, and over its 21 years has raised more than $28 million to fight childhood cancer through the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
2010s-present
The addition of an FM simulcast on 95.5 in August 2010 boosted WSB’s reach and hastened Atlanta listeners to the FM dial and away from AM.
Eric Von Haessler, Erick Erickson and Mark Arum all became regular talk-show hosts on the station, which was the No. 1 in ratings for nearly the entire decade.
At the same time, the past decade has involved a lot of tragedy. Beloved Boortz producer and host Royal Marshall died of a heart attack in 2011 at age 43. Popular traffic reporter Emory was just 61 when he too died of a heart attack. The Georgia 400-I-85 flyover ramp was named in Emory’s honor. Cain died of COVID-19 in 2020, while talk radio pioneer Rush Limbaugh died a few months later of cancer.
Hundreds of thousands of people listened to WSB in 2014 when an ice storm trapped thousands on highways overnight and forced many to abandon their vehicles. During the wee hours, having otherwise run out of things to say, Erickson read his Sunday School lesson.
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