Thus, while WWKB can be heard across most of the eastern half of North America at night, its signal is spotty only 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Buffalo.

Local residents remain largely unaware that the antenna array is internationally famous for sending WWKB's nighttime signal to all over Nordic countries on a regular basis.

The directional nighttime signal has resulted the station being commonly heard in parts of Finland and Sweden using special DX equipment during winter months.

A group of Scandinavian radio reception enthusiasts visited for conference at a Camp Road motel, to view the transmitter array, apparently to photograph and measure it.

The use of WWKB as a de facto co-flagship would also allow the Bills' home team broadcast to be heard across the East Coast if they were to reach the Super Bowl.

[10] In March 1941 WKBW inaugurated a new transmitter plant south of Buffalo in the town of Hamburg, increased power to 50,000 watts around the clock and shifted to its current "clear channel" frequency of 1520 kHz as a result of North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, with the provision that as "Class I-B" stations, it and its Oklahoma City counterpart, now KOMA, had to maintain directional antennas at night to mutually protect each other from interference.

The station later broadcast a wide variety of ethnic, country and western and religious programming when not carrying network offerings, including pioneer rock and roll and rhythm and blues shows launched in the 1950s by disk jockey George "Hounddog" Lorenz, later founder of pioneer FM urban station WBLK.

On July 4, 1958, a few months before companion station WKBW-TV (channel 7) was launched, WKBW radio abandoned its adult approach and was converted into a personality-driven full service Top 40 music radio station, featuring foreground personalities, a tight playlist of current hits and an aggressive local news department, which it continued to program with great success for over 20 years.

Churchill sold WKBW-AM-TV to Capital Cities Broadcasting in 1961, earning a handsome return on his original investment of 35 years earlier.

[14][15] On Halloween Night 1968, writer Dan Kriegler and then-program director Jefferson Kaye (later the voice of WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, co-owned with WKBW-TV in 1971) commemorated the 30th anniversary of Orson Welles' 1938 War of the Worlds by re-making the infamous broadcast, updating the storyline and changing locations to make it significant to Buffalo listeners.

Kaye (the voice of NFL Films) did another equally well-received remake of "War of the Worlds" in 1972 using a revised script and some new cast members including Jackson Armstrong and newsmen Jim McLaughlin and Joe Downey.

Disk jockeys included future Price Is Right announcer Rod Roddy, Dick Biondi, Danny Neaverth, Jack Armstrong, Joey Reynolds, Steve Mitchell, Bud Ballou, Norm Marshall, Tom Shannon, and the Amazin' Jim Quinn.

Art Wander served as news director from 1956 to 1958, followed by Irv Weinstein from 1958 to 1964; Stan Barron, a holdover from the pre-rock and roll era, handled sports until his departure in 1965.

A recreated example of WKBW as an early 1960s-era pop radio station can be found on Ron Jacobs' "Cruisin' 1960" (Increase Records INCR 5–2005).

This recreation features Dick Biondi and includes several classic rock and pop songs of that era, contemporary commercials, and DJ patter.

WWKB aired J. R. Gach from WGR as the afternoon drive show and established syndicated hot talkers The Howard Stern Show (by this time now almost exclusively on the FM dial), G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Schlessinger, The Fabulous Sports Babe, Tom Leykis and (briefly, before Gach's arrival) Don and Mike.

In 1999, Sinclair decided to divest its radio stations, selling most of them, including WWKB, WBEN and WGR, to Entercom Communications.

On January 27, 2003, WWKB returned to music, playing oldies from the station's heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, featuring artists such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Frankie Lymon, The Four Seasons, The Who, The Four Tops, The Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Ricky Nelson, Lovin Spoonful, and many others.

[citation needed] As late as 2010 there were ongoing reports alleging that Entercom had cut back WWKB's power to 10,000 watts, to reduce electrical costs.

However, Entercom did not file with the Federal Communications Commission to do so, and such a reduction was unconfirmed; indications are that the station's signal and range remained normal.

The ESPN Radio affiliation had previously been on WGR from the network's launch in 1992 until 2013; WGR's increased emphasis on local programming (and, since The Phil Hendrie Show moved to an earlier time slot, a lack of progressive talk programs to air in the overnight hours) prompted Entercom to move the ESPN affiliation to a full-time signal.