How it started
Radio
In 1948, when The Asahi Shimbun set up a committee for a private radio station in Tokyo, the name ABC was decided upon to be the name of the station. Asahi Broadcasting requested licenses in December 1949 to both Tokyo and Osaka, but in December 1950, the original company merged with Tokyo Broadcasting (Dentsu), Yomiuri Broadcasting and Radio Nippon (funded by Mainichi Shimbun) to create Radio Tokyo (JOKR, KRT, now TBS). In 1951, the ABC plan was revived for a new radio station in Osaka.
The new Asahi Broadcasting Corporation was founded in Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka on March 15, 1951, with Mitsujirō Ishii appointed as its first president. ABC started AM radio broadcasting on November 11 (1010 kHz). It became the third commercial radio station to sign-on in Japan overall.
On April 1, 1958, the station relocated to the Shin-Asahi Building and in June, started simultaneous broadcasts with KRT Radio, carrying the first commercial radio simulcasts between Tokyo and Osaka. The frequency output doubled from 10 KW to 20 in 1959.
After joining JRN in 1965, ABC relocated to the ABC Center in 1966. Its transmission output was later increased to 50 kW in 1971. In line with changes to the frequency plan set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), ABC Radio's frequency shifted from 1010 kHz to 1008 kHz on November 23, 1978. The station officially adopted "ABC Radio" as its commercial name on April 1, 1989. More recently, on March 19, 2016, ABC began broadcasting over the Wide FM band, alongside OBC and MBS.
Early years
From Wikipedia’s article on Asahi Broadcasting Group Holdings, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2