WZAM

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Radio station in Ishpeming, Michigan

title: "WZAM" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["radio-stations-in-michigan", "active-rock-radio-stations-in-the-united-states", "1959-establishments-in-michigan", "radio-stations-established-in-1959", "marquette-county,-michigan", "native-american-radio", "ojibwe"] description: "Radio station in Ishpeming, Michigan" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WZAM" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Radio station in Ishpeming, Michigan ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox radio station"]

Field	Value
name	WZAM
above	Simulcasts WGLI Hancock
city	Ishpeming, Michigan
area	Marquette, Michigan
country	US
branding	The Rockin' Eagle
frequency	970 kHz
translator	106.9 W295CX (Marquette)
airdate	(as WJAN)
format	Active rock
power	250 watts day
62 watts night
class	D
facility_id	64504
former_callsigns
affiliations	Detroit Lions Radio Network
owner	Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Native American Tribe
sister_stations	WCUP, WGLI, WMQT
webcast	Listen Live
website	WZAM Online
licensing_authority	FCC
::

WZAM (970 AM) is an active rock format radio station licensed to Ishpeming, Michigan, United States.

History

Tri-City Broadcasters, Inc. received a construction permit to build a new radio station in Ishpeming on February 25, 1959, to operate with 5,000 watts during daylight hours only. The station began broadcasting as WJAN on June 26, 1959. Raymond and Joyce Blomquist ran the station until January 22, 1964, when it was foreclosed upon by radio equipment manufacturer Gates Radio Co. and shut down by county sheriffs. The station's CBS Radio affiliation went to WDBC six months later.

A receiver was appointed for the company, and the station was sold out of bankruptcy to Canyon Broadcasters in January 1965. Canyon's owner, Frank Blotter, had become involved with the station right before it folded. Renaming it WCKD, he confronted the task of putting the station back into service. All that remained after Gates's equipment was seized was the antenna structure, requiring almost every necessary piece of equipment to be purchased. It would not be until August 30, 1965, that WCKD signed on the air. Under Canyon, the station continued to struggle as a daytime-only station with a full-time competitor in a small town, losing money. A series of violations over operations after sunset and before sunrise, forbidden for daytime-only radio stations, would end up almost costing Blotter in another business venture. Blotter blamed the confusion on changes that resulted from the Uniform Time Act; the Upper Peninsula moved from year-round Eastern Standard Time to year-round Central Standard Time (CST). Blotter's station application was ultimately granted when the commission ruled the time zone confusion a misunderstanding and not an "intentional disregard" for regulations.

Taconite Broadcasting acquired the station and changed the call letters to WUPY in 1971. A new talk format was instituted, copying what Taconite's owners—Robert Olson and William Blake—had successfully done at WMPL in Hancock; annual billings soared from $30,000 to $180,000.

By 1994, when Olson sold his stake in Taconite Broadcasting to Blake, WMVN was airing a religious format. This had changed to a simulcast of sister WMQT before WMVN became WZAM with an all-news format from the Associated Press in 1996. Taconite Broadcasting itself would be sold in 2005 to a company of the same name controlled by Thomas Mogush, who already owned 30 percent of the firm but became sole owner after Blake's death. Mogush flipped the station from news to sports using programming from ESPN Radio. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/WZAM-AM.jpg" caption="Former logo until April 8, 2016."] ::

A translator was added in 2013 to give WZAM FM coverage for the first time.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/WZAM_970-93.3ESPN_logo.jpg" caption="Previous logo"] ::

Effective May 31, 2022, Taconite Broadcasting sold WZAM, sister station WMQT, and translators W227CJ and W295CX to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Native American Tribe for $400,000.

In late 2022, the station flipped to a rock format, and became known as "The Rockin' Eagle", simulcasting sister station WGLI.

References

"History Cards for WZAM". [[Federal Communications Commission]]}} ([[Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations/History Cards.
(June 24, 1959). "WJAN At Ishpeming Broadcasts Friday". Escanaba Daily Press.
(January 25, 1964). "Lawsuit Halts Station WJAN". Escanaba Daily Press.
(July 27, 1964). "WDBC joins CBS Radio". Broadcasting.
Honig, Isadore. (July 23, 1968). "19 FCC 2d 273 Du Page County Broadcasting, et al.: Initial Decision".
Honig, Isadore. (September 13, 1971). "Supplemental Initial Decision (39 FCC 2d 895)".
(February 21, 1973). "Decision (39 FCC 2d 885)". Federal Communications Commission.
(May 28, 1973). "Talk radio: in the middle of America's conversational mainstream". Broadcasting.
(July 29, 1994). "Transactions". Radio & Records.
(September 4, 1996). "Format Changes". M Street Journal.
(September 3, 2005). "Deals". Broadcasting & Cable.
(July 19, 2005). "Upper Midwest Broadcasting—July 2005". Northpine.
(July 23, 2013). "ESPN Radio adding FM station". ABC 10 UP.
"Keweenaw Bay Indian Community buys WMQT, WZAM". [[WLUC-TV]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::