Gallery: WDAM News Personalities
(Hattiesburg American: 2/7/1956)
WDAM was the Hattiesburg-Laurel area's first television station. The facility's call letters are the initials of the original owner,
David A. Matison
. The station was constructed in 1956 on Highway 11, one mile north of Eastabutchie. The original facility covered a 65 mile broadcast radius. Network programs were transmitted in color, though local programs were only available in black and white. The station began as channel 9, but later switched to channel 7.
While networks provided much of the station's daily content, local personalities such as Jimmy Swan 
and Robert Cade 
(aka, "Engineer Bob") provided programming that was closer to home. A local news, weather, sports and editorial staff was also included, members of which became familiar faces to Hattiesburg audiences over the years.
This gallery spotlights some of the news anchors remembered from WDAM's earlier days. Check out the photos below and see how many faces you can identify. By the way, WDAM celebrated its 70th year of broadcasting in 2026; Happy Anniversary!
As always, please contact us if you can think of other WDAM news personalities that you don't see here. It would help if you include a photo.
(Place your cursor over a Who am I? button to see an individual's name.)
Did You Know...
While WDAM was the Hattiesburg area's first local station, the very first television pictures were viewed here in 1949. The TV set was owned by J. L. Blake of (then) Blake's Radio Service on Broadway Drive. Blake, an RCA engineer, designed a special antenna with a booster to receive New Orleans transmissions. The set had a 7x9 view screen with an attachment that resized the images to 15 inches in width (Hattiesburg American: 1/10/1949).