Samuel R. Sague established this station as WSRS on December 12, 1947, the call letters being derived from his initials; an FM sister station, WSRS-FM (95.3), followed one week later. Both the AM and FM stations were licensed to Cleveland Heights, and positioned themselves as focusing on the Cleveland suburb specifically as opposed to all of Greater Cleveland. WSRS-FM duplicated the AM station's programming full-time, but Sague—an early proponent of FM broadcasting—referred to it in a "Cleveland Press" profile as WSRS that was simulcasting WSRS-FM.