It is the National Primary Entry Point (PEP) for the Emergency Alert System (EAS) in Middle Tennessee and the southwestern portion of Indiana.

Jason Coleman hosts a Sunday night piano music show in honor of his grandfather, longtime Nashville keyboardist Floyd Cramer.

[9] In 2017, WSM launched "Route 650", a full-time Americana music streaming station available via its website, mobile app and services like TuneIn.

[17] Studios were first located in the company's building on Seventh Avenue and Union Street in downtown Nashville; this was the original home of the Opry, until 1934.

[16] During daytime hours, the station broadcast long-form radio, including both local and NBC network programs, in addition to music.

On November 11, 1928, the Federal Radio Commission implemented General Order 40, which assigned WSM to a frequency of 650 kHz, as Tennessee's sole "clear channel" allocation.

For most of its history, WSM, along with WSM-TV and the Grand Ole Opry, was owned by the Nashville-based National Life and Accident Insurance Company.

[16] Country and bluegrass legend John Hartford parodied the distinctive style of WSM DJs on the 1971 album Aereo-Plain, humorously changing the station's call letters to the phrase "Dorothy S. Ma'am".

WSM-TV, due to FCC ownership limits at the time, was sold instead to Gillett Broadcasting and changed its callsign to WSMV-TV.

Gaylord would also move the WSM radio stations to new facilities at the Opryland Hotel, departing their shared building on Knob Road, which still houses WSMV today.

[23] In 2001, management had sought to capitalize on the success of sister station WWTN's sports trappings by converting WSM to an all-sports format.

Word was leaked to other media resulting in protests, including longtime Opry personalities and country music singers, outside the station's studios.

[5] From 2002 until 2006, the station was a choice on Sirius Satellite Radio, which carried a full-time simulcast of WSM's signal, except during NASCAR races.

Briefly in 2006, the channel converted to "WSM Entertainment", a separate satellite radio feed that carried the same classic country music format as the AM signal.

About a year after the channel was eliminated, then-rival XM Satellite Radio announced the carriage of the Grand Ole Opry on Nashville!

[24] WSM's administrative offices next door to the Grand Ole Opry House were completely destroyed by the flood, resulting in the loss of several priceless documents from the station's history, and later demolished.

WSM's unusual diamond-shaped transmitting antenna (manufactured by Blaw-Knox) is visible from Interstate 65 just south of Nashville (in Brentwood) and is one of the area's landmarks.

[31][32] In 1943 the call sign was changed to WSM-FM, however the station was shut down in 1951, although its antenna is still mounted atop the Blaw Knox tower at Brentwood.