The station is also heard on a 250-watt FMtranslator, 98.5 W253DA, which allows listeners who prefer FM radio to hear WGAN in Portland and its close suburbs.[2] In addition, WGAN is heard on the HD2 channel of co-owned 93.1 WMGX. AM 560 broadcasts with 5,000 watts around the clock, covering much of Southern Maine and along the Maine Coast up to Rockland. The transmitter is near the Maine Turnpike off Warren Avenue in Portland.[3] WGAN is Maine's primary entry point station for the Emergency Alert System.
The station was founded in 1938 by Guy Gannett Publishing, which was then the owner of the Portland Press Herald newspaper.[4] It was Portland's second radio station after 970 WCSH (now co-owned WZAN) which signed on in 1925. WGAN had its studios in the Columbia Hotel and originally broadcast on 640 kHz at 500 watts. It was a daytimer, required to go off the air at sunset in Los Angeles, because it shared AM 640 with Class I-AKFI, the dominant clear channel station.
In 1954, WGAN gained a companion television station, WGAN-TV 13, and in 1967, a co-owned FM station, 102.9 WGAN-FM (now WBLM). When network programming moved from radio to television, WGAN began airing a full service, middle of the road format of popular music, news and sports.
Until the early 1980s, Gannett's Portland operations owned the major daily newspaper, the CBS television station, 102.9 WGAN-FM and 560 WGAN, two of the city's top radio stations. Channel 13 was later renamed WGME when WGAN-AM-FM were sold to Taylor Communications in 1983. In 1987, WGAN was sold by Taylor to Saga Communications, its present owner. Saga increased the talk programming and decreased the music shows, eventually evolving WGAN to a full time talk format.
On August 22, 2019, WGAN also began simulcasting on FM translator W253DA 98.5 FM.[7] The 105.5 translator would switch to an oldies format in the fall.
In March 2020, morning co-host Ken Altshuler was fired, followed in April with weekend morning host John McDonald's termination. Altshuler had been with WGAN for 18 years, and McDonald for 25.
