WJMO

WJMO (1300 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, United States, and airs a Spanish/tropical music format known as Fuego 1300.

During the 1950s, WERE was the first popular Top 40 station in the market, spearheaded by now-legendary personalities like Bill Randle, "Captain" Carl Reese, Phil McLean, Ronnie Barrett, Howie Lund and Bob Forster.

Randle was the most influential of the group, as he was the first major-market disk jockey in the Northeast United States to play Elvis Presley, and bolstered the careers of a number of young musicians, including The Four Lads, Bobby Darin, and Fats Domino.

[4] WERE had also obtained a construction permit in the mid-1950s for WERE-TV on channel 65; however, due to the obscurity of the UHF dial at the time, the television station never made it on the air.

[10][11] KFAC and KFAC-FM in Los Angeles were given waivers to the "one-to-a-customer" policy,[12] and the deal was approved by the commission on October 29, 1969, on the condition that WERE-FM would be sold "as soon as practicable.

"[13] General Cinema Corporation acquired WERE-FM in May 1970 for $525,000, the deal was approved that July;[14][15] ASI was later granted a tax break by the FCC with the sale.

During the Browns' second stay at the station, it was the memorable broadcast team of Gib Shanley and Jim Graner providing play-by-play and color commentary, respectively.

[17][18] Branded as "People Power", the station attracted negative attention at launch for its aggressive on-air presentation headlined by controversial hosts Gary Dee (Gary D. Gilbert), Merle Pollis and Joel Rose; while WERE reportedly lost $1 million in ad billings within the first three days, it quickly went up to among the top positions in the Cleveland Arbitron ratings.

[18] Dee's populist-redneck style in particular, combined with his morning drive-time slot, made him Cleveland's top-rated talk host within the first complete ratings book following the format switch; George Forbes, then the president of Cleveland City Council and an on-air foil for Dee, was also offered a talk show of his own, owing to the FCC's Fairness Doctrine policy of equal time.

[17] WERE would drop the talk format on June 18, 1975, in favor of NBC Radio's News and Information Service;[19] Dee would promptly be hired as the morning host at WHK (1420 AM).

[23] Despite not having any common ownership with General Cinema, WERE's license name was changed to "GCC Communications of Cleveland" after the purchase of WGCL; both stations would remain under that name until they were sold again in 1986.

As part of a larger multi-market partnership between Urban One and La Mega Media Inc. (LMM), WJMO dropped its urban gospel format for Spanish variety as "La Mega 1300" on November 1, 2024, concurrent with LMM assuming operational control of the station; The final song to play as "Praise 94.5" was "Awesome God" by Helen Baylor.

[38] [39] The move returned the heretofore online-only "La Mega" to the terrestrial radio dial, as LMM (then known as TSJ Media) operated WLFM-LP (channel 6)—a low-power analog television station whose audio transmissions were audible at 87.7 FM from 2014 until 2020.

1948 WERE-FM advertisement
Logo before June 2007
Final logo as an urban gospel station.
Logo during the last 2 months of 2024, under the "La Mega 1300" branding