MIT’s radio station, WMBR, began as a campus-only AM broadcast station called WMIT. It aired for the first time on November 25, 1946, from the basement of Ware dormitory on 800 kHz. In the 1950s, to reach the fraternities located in Boston, the station applied for a Federal Communications Commission license. Since WMIT was already taken, it chose WTBS (Technology Broadcasting System) as its call letters. In the late 1970s, the station reached a complex deal with Ted Turner to give up their call letters that netted them a $50,000 donation. In the end, WTBS became the mark of the Turner Broadcast System empire and on November 10, 1979, Walker Memorial Basement Radio (WMBR) signed on.