WBZ NewsRadio 1030 streams continuous news, weather, and traffic live from Boston today, part of a signal so powerful it reaches much of the eastern United States and Canada after dark. Press play on Radio Shuffle and it streams instantly, free, with no account or app download required.
The first commercial broadcasting license in America
WBZ holds a genuinely unmatched distinction in American radio: it was the first station in the country ever issued a commercial broadcasting license, granted to the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company on September 15, 1921, according to Wikipedia's history of the station. Its first program aired four days later, on September 19, 1921, a remote broadcast from the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield. Even the call letters were an accident of timing: Westinghouse had actually requested "KDKS" on its application, but the letters had already gone to a ship, so the Department of Commerce assigned WBZ at random instead.
A signal built to cover the whole eastern seaboard
WBZ spent its first two decades bouncing across a series of frequencies before settling permanently onto 1030 AM in March 1941, when its clear-channel assignment moved over from 990. In 1931, the station built a transmitter complex in Millis, Massachusetts capable of pushing 50,000 watts, the maximum clear-channel power allowed in American AM radio, and it has broadcast from a transmitter site in Hull, Massachusetts since 1940. That combination of clear-channel status and full power means WBZ's signal covers much of the eastern United States and Canada at night, a reach few local stations anywhere in the country can match.
Listen free on Radio Shuffle
WBZ NewsRadio 1030 streams around the clock, and Radio Shuffle carries the feed live with nothing to install and no subscription required. Press play for the station that held America's very first commercial broadcasting license.