WDAD AM-1450 actually first signed on the air on November 4, 1945 with limited programming but by the time our nation started to recover from the end of World War II, and the calendar flipped, WDAD started full-time operation and the rest is history.

Now on the FM band as well at 100.3 FM, WDAD AM-FM remains as popular as ever!

Thank to the sponsors helping us celebrate 75 years!

WDAD was the first radio station in Indiana County, and was one of the first radio stations in the nation granted licenses after World War II had ended. The station has kept its original call letters throughout its history in what is now 75 years. The WDAD call letters were formerly used by a Nashville, TN radio station which first signed on the air in 1925.

WDAD’s ownership was relatively stable, having only had four owners in its long history. The station was signed on November 4, 1945 under the corporate name Indiana Broadcasters, Inc. Paul Short served as company president and general manager. The station started off with part-time programming and gradually began operating full time in 1946. The station’s studios and offices were housed in the Indiana Theatre Building at 633 Philadelphia Street. Beginning in 1946 the station operated at a full-time power of 250 watts from its transmitter site along Old Highway 422 and Twolick Road in neighboring White Township, Pennsylvania. The site is still marked on what is now the East Pike Recreation Complex.

Progressive Publishing of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, purchased the station in August 1955 but continued to operate WDAD (and later its FM sister station WQMU) under the existing company name Indiana Broadcasters. Progressive also owned two other radio stations in Clearfield and State College. Under Progressive’s ownership of more than three decades, WDAD prospered greatly, beginning with a facility upgrade in 1964, which allowed it to increase its daytime power from 250 watts to 1,000 watts.

WDAD enjoyed a long history of success in its hometown, despite two aggressive competitors, WCCS in Homer City, and WLCYFM in Blairsville, south of Indiana, both of which came on the air in the early 1980s. Coincidentally, WCCS co-founder Ray Goss had served as General Manager for WDAD and WQMU for 15 years before leaving to start WCCS in 1981. In 1984, WDAD and sister station WQMU moved from its studios and offices along Oakland Ave. near IUP to a spacious new facility at 21 North Fifth Street. That same year, WDAD was granted permission to increase its nighttime power to 1,000 watts, which happened the following year after its transmitter facility was moved from East Pike to Elkin Ave. not far from the Country Club. Progressive Publishing decided to sell WDAD in 1989 to RMS Media Management, a company headed by its then-general manager, Richard Sherry, who had been with the stations since 1967.

Both competitors WCCS and WLCY, which had been separately owned, began to pair up in June 2002 when Tony Renda, President of Renda Broadcasting Corporation of Pittsburgh and owner of stations in PA, FL, and OK, purchased WCCS & WLCY.

Two years later, Tony purchased WDAD and WQMU, and moved the 4-station cluster into the old Gatti Pharmacy Building in downtown Indiana which was completely renovated. And where did Renda first fall in love with the radio business? The answer is by watching through the WDAD windows as a child, and then working at WDAD as a teenager. The rest is history, and WDAD’s is now 75 years old.