Personalities
Among the WMAL broadcasters over the years have been Frank Harden and Jackson Weaver, who co-hosted WMAL's morning show for more than four decades until Weaver's death in the early 1990s; Tom Gauger, who also spent several decades at WMAL; Arthur Godfrey, a national radio and early-TV personality who briefly broadcast on WMAL in 1933 as "Red" Godfrey; Bill Mayhugh, a mellow-voiced overnight broadcaster; and Ken Beatrice, a sports talk radio pioneer who hosted a call-in show from 1977 to 1995.
The station also kept a local following for a time by broadcasting sports games featuring the Washington Redskins and University of Maryland, College Park Terrapins. Legendary jazz authority Felix Grant broadcast on WMAL for decades.
Support of the local community has been a tradition for WMAL, which founded such innovative fund-raisers as the Leukemia Radiothon and the Gross National Parade, which supported the D.C. Police Boys & Girls Club.
As of November 1, 2009, WMAL's morning-drive through midnight weekday format was uninterrupted conservative talk, with a lineup of Fred Grandy and Andy Parks, Chris Plante, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Joe Scarborough, and Curtis Sliwa. Weekends include gardening host Jos Roozen, investing adviser Ric Edelman and lawyer Michael Collins. In August 2005, host Michael Graham was fired after refusing to apologize for calling the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a "terrorist organization." Longtime Washington broadcaster Chris Core was dismissed from WMAL in 2008 as part of a broad cost-cutting move; his replacement, Austin Hill, was dropped in February 2009 due to Levin's show expanding and Sliwa's show moving up an hour. Plante (the biological son of Bill Plante), a popular talk host who hosted evenings and later middays, was yanked in favor of Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe in April 2009, only to return to middays six months later after Scarborough was yanked and eventually moved to a nighttime timeslot. John Batchelor replaced Sliwa in November 2009. In April 2010, Parks was laid off from the station, resulting in Plante's and Grandy's shows being merged (the duo hosts the first 2½ hours together while Plante handled the last 90 minutes solo). At the same time, Scarborough's show was put on extended hiatus. Austin Hill began filling in the middays for the time being, while Mark Simone handled Scarborough's shift. Grandy left WMAL in March 2011.
The 5 AM to Midnight lineup, as of 2/28/2012, consists of "Mornings on the Mall" program with Brian Wilson and Larry O'Connor, followed by Chris Plante, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and John Batchelor.
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