Its daytime signal is heard at city-grade strength as far as Indianapolis, Indiana; Lexington, Kentucky; and Columbus, Ohio, with secondary coverage as far as Louisville and the outer suburbs of Cleveland and Detroit.

Bill Cunningham hosts a weekday program,[2] and WLW is the flagship station for his Live on Sunday Night, which is syndicated by Premiere Networks.

Crosley recounted that his introduction to radio occurred on February 22, 1921, when he took his son to the local Precision Equipment Company store to investigate purchasing a receiver.

Most accounts say he began in July 1921, using a 20-watt set located in an upstairs billiard table room, repeatedly playing a phonograph record of "Song of India", while asking local amateur radio enthusiasts to call if they heard his signals.

The Crosley Manufacturing Company also applied for one of the new licenses, which was granted on March 2, 1922, for operation on the 360 meter "entertainment" wavelength, and issued the randomly assigned call letters of WLW.

[9] WLW made its debut broadcast on March 23, 1922, beginning at 7:15 p.m. Station studios and transmitter were located at the Blue Rock Street building.

Although the transmitter power was a fairly modest 50 watts, station publicity boldly predicted that although previously only the smaller type of sending apparatus has been employed in Cincinnati, The equipment of the Crosley Manufacturing Company is of such great power that the concert emanating from Cincinnati will be heard as far as a distant point in Canada; as far east as the Atlantic Ocean; west as far as the Rocky Mountains, and south to the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys, and possibly to ships in the Gulf of Mexico?

[11] The single shared entertainment wavelength of 360 meters meant that stations within a given region had to make timesharing agreements to assign operating timeslots.

On August 7, 1922, WLW's programs were scheduled from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., while WMH's ran from 8:15 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.[12] Crosley was a fanatic about the new broadcasting technology, and continually increased his station's capability.

[13][14] In May 1923 the Department of Commerce set aside a band of "Class B" frequencies reserved for stations that had quality equipment and programming, and the Cincinnati region was assigned exclusive use of 970 kHz.

"[19] In late 1924 Western Electric began selling radio transmitters capable of operating at 5,000 watts,[20] but the Commerce Department, wary of the high-powered sets overwhelming local receivers, did not immediately allow stations to use the full power.

Instead stations could start operating with up to 1,500 watts, then, only if approved by the region's Radio Supervisor, increase powers in successive 500-watt steps, while ensuring that it was not causing excessive interference.

In addition, a new remote transmitter site was constructed at Harrison, Ohio, located away from the city in order to limit the possibility of the station's signals overwhelming local receivers.

[23] The Commerce Department's cautious approach toward power increases was based on the assumption that station transmitters were located in heavily populated areas.

However, in May 1925 it recognized that WLW's Harrison and WSAI's Mason, Ohio transmitter sites were both far enough from population centers that they could immediately begin operating as the first two stations in the nation transmitting with the full 5,000 watts.

[24][25] A Cincinnati Post writer investigated the effect of WSAI and WLW's May 11 introduction of the use of 5,000 watts, and found that despite claims that their "superpower broadcasting" would eliminate static within 500 miles, it was only "a start in the right direction".

[29] By the summer of 1928, in addition to WGY, WEAF (now WFAN) in New York City and KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania were also broadcasting with 50,000 watts,[31] and WLW was making plans to join them.

This eventually resulted in the formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), which as part of its re-establishment of control moved WLW to 700 kHz in June 1927, the frequency on which it has operated ever since.

On May 2, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ceremonially pressed the same golden telegraph key that Wilson had used to open the Panama Canal, officially launching WLW's 500-kilowatt signal.

One result was that by 1936 there was increasing pressure on the FCC to start allowing additional clear channel stations to operate with 500,000 watts, and in October there were a reported 14 outstanding applicants to join the "superpower" ranks.

Other significant artists who worked there were Joe Maphis, Hank Penny, Smiley Burnette, Lazy Jim Day and Shug Fisher.

The next year Crosley sold WLW to the Aviation Corporation of the Americas (Avco), earning a handsome return on his original investment of a quarter-century earlier.

[61] Despite no longer being the sole occupant of 700 kHz, WLW's signal still sometimes spanned impressive distances, and in 1985 overnight host Dale Sommers received a call from a listener in Hawaii.

The latter station had been licensed to Covington, Kentucky (hence its callsign), for much of the early part of its history, a quirk that allowed it to get a clear-channel designation despite WLW's presence.

A Bell 47G traffic helicopter leased by the station was severely damaged in an emergency landing at Maketewah Country Club on 20 May 1982 that injured the pilot and reporter Bill Beahr.

It operated in class C with high-level plate modulation, and required two dedicated 33 kilovolt electrical substation lines and a large cooling pond complete with spray fountains.

[79] In October 1940 a suspicious fire broke out in the WLWO tuning house,[80] which led to an increase in security, and in early 1941 it was reported that "Today you would have little chance of getting close enough to the equipment to do any damage, for out at Mason, Ohio, where the transmitters of WLW and WLWO are located, a special guardhouse seventy-five feet (23 meters) high has been built, a high metal fence encloses the grounds which are patrolled by a staff of twelve guards twenty-four hours out of each day, and a battery of floodlights illuminates every foot of the grounds day and night.

Chief Engineer Paul Jellison replaced a bad vacuum tube, and successfully operated the water-cooled equipment, which he noted was quieter than the newer transmitters cooled by air blowers.

[81] The station claims many well-known alumni, including: Jack Berch,[82] Mary Jane Croft,[83] Merle Travis, Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney, Ruth Lyons, Bob Braun, Wally Phillips, Jean Shepherd, Frazier Thomas, NBC sportscasters Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels, "Sportstalk" host Bob Trumpy, Dale Sommers (better known as the "Truckin' Bozo" and whose son Steve Sommers continued to hold the overnight slot until he was fired in late 2020),[84] J. R. Gach, Gary Burbank (comedy talk host, impressionist, and creator of the nationally syndicated Earl Pitts monologues), former program director and personality Darryl Parks and former Clear Channel radio CEO Randy Michaels.

Rod Serling, the creator of the classic TV series The Twilight Zone, worked for WLW from 1947 to 1948[85] producing historical documentaries, community profiles and commercials, before leaving to pursue other opportunities in the broadcasting industry.