NorthEast Radio Watch 7/19/2021: EMF Adds in the Keystone State

In this week’s issue… More K-Love in Central PA – Audacy nationalizes CHRs – Maine Public, WNED name new leaders – Buffalo Broadcasters name Hall of Fame – Maritimes AMs look for FM moves

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*When a single big FM signal finds a buyer these days, it’s usually the same buyer: only EMF Broadcasting has the cash on hand and the interest in running one station in a world dominated by big cluster operators.

It’s happening again in central PENNSYLVANIA, where Hall Communications filed last week to sell WROZ (101.3 Lancaster) to EMF for $1.725 million in a move that will dramatically improve EMF’s coverage of the area with its “K-Love” Christian contemporary format. Right now, only the Harrisburg end of the sprawling market gets a K-Love signal via class A WKHL (92.1 Palmyra), but that will change in a big way when EMF takes over the big 7.4 kW/379 m class B signal of what’s now AC “Fun 101.3” once the deal closes.

It’s a rare sale for Hall, which has been a slow but steady buyer of stations into small clusters it tends to hold for a long time. How long? It was back in 1976 when Hall bought the 101.3 signal (then WGAL-FM) and its sister on AM 1490 (then WGAL) from the Steinman family.

For now, at least, Hall is keeping the rest of its central Pennsylvania cluster, which all simulcast ESPN Radio sports programming: there’s that 1490 signal, now WLPA, a Lancaster translator on 92.5, plus WONN-FM (92.7 Starview), which reaches Harrisburg and York with ESPN. Are they, too, in play? We’ll be watching – and we’ll be waiting to see how EMF shuffles its lineup, where we’d expect Air 1 to replace K-Love on 92.1, and also on the 101.7 Carlisle translator fed by an HD2 of iHeart’s WHKF (99.3 Harrisburg).