WRKO serves as the Boston affiliate for ABC News Radio, Coast to Coast AM and This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal; syndicated personalities Joe Pags, John Batchelor and Bill Cunningham; the flagship station of The Howie Carr Show, and the home of radio personality Jeff Kuhner.
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The WRKO studios are located in the Boston suburb of Medford, while the station transmitter resides in nearby Burlington.
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WRKO is one of three AM stations owned by iHeartMedia in the Boston market that features a spoken word format; WBZ is all news during the day and overnight, with local talk in the evening, while WXKS carries a nationally syndicated conservative talk line up.
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WRKO eventually drove WMEX to a format change in 1975, with WRKO remaining Boston's sole AM Top 40 station.
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WRKO was propelled in its success by the introduction of the so-called Drake format originated by radio programmer Bill Drake.
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In 1980, WRKO began running talk programming during evening hours.
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WRKO was, from 1986 to 1994, the flagship station for the Boston Red Sox.
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WRKO carried Boston Celtics basketball broadcasts from 2005 to 2007, when WEEI assumed the flagship station role.
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WRKO contracted with Metro Networks to provide hourly news updates, including traffic and weather, during the day.
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WRKO has notably dropped The Rush Limbaugh Show from its schedule two different times: the first time came in March 2010 when Clear Channel Communications launched a talk station of its own on WXKS, and picked up the affiliation rights to it and other programs syndicated by Premiere Networks; this included Coast to Coast AM, which WRKO aired in overnights.
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WRKO dropped Rush Limbaugh again in May 2015, citing the expenses for running Limbaugh had risen too steeply; Kuhner was moved to the midday time slot; the replacement morning show, co-hosted by Kim Carrigan and Doug "VB" Goudie, featured material from Boston.
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Until WKOX's spinoff into the Ocean Stations Trust was completed, WRKO was operated by the Entercom Divestiture Trust, while the sister stations began being operated by iHeart once the merger closed.
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WRKO's studios moved to iHeartMedia's facilities in Medford in July 2018; the main talk studio is shared with WBZ.
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In late November 2018, WRKO moved Jeff Kuhner back to morning drive and Doug Goudie to middays, with Kim Carrigan exiting the station.
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WRKO has two local conservative talk shows on its weekday schedule; Jeff Kuhner hosts the drive time program, and The Howie Carr Show, hosted by Howie Carr, airs in late afternoons; the latter program is regionally syndicated to a number of other talk stations in New England, and the 4 p m ET hour is simulcast on the cable network Newsmax TV.
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