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NorthEast Radio Watch 3/27/2023: Seven Mountains Rearranges Altoona

Scott Fybush by Scott Fybush
March 28, 2023
in Free Content, Northeast Radio Watch
0

In this week’s issue… Format shuffle follows Forever’s Altoona exit – Public TV job cuts in Mass. – Another AM gone – ATSC 3 launches in Rochester – Tower sells Elmira – Saga Portland making “Whoopie” – PLUS: Baseball On The Radio, 2023 Edition

By SCOTT FYBUSH

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

*When Seven Mountains/Southern Belle acquired most of Forever’s stations in western PENNSYLVANIA last year, Kristin Cantrell’s company had to move fairly quickly to rearrange formats on the signals in State College that had belonged to her father, Kerby Confer, in order to be able to spin off several FMs that couldn’t stay with Seven Mountains because of market caps.

In two neighboring markets, though, the Forever formats continued for a few months longer while Seven Mountains made changes behind the scenes to get ready to relaunch its own preferred brands and formats on the signals. We’re still waiting to see what shakes out in Johnstown, but last week brought big changes in Altoona as Seven Mountains dropped several Forever formats and launched a few of its own.

Will everybody love the new sounds at Seven Mountains? We hope you’ll agree that we at least have a comprehensive list of what’s changed and what’s still changing:

*On the AM dial, WFBG (1290/104.5) had a brand that went back 99 years, to the 1924 debut of the station under department store owner William F.B. Gable. In later years under Walter Annenberg’s Triangle group, the AM station spawned the market’s big TV station, WFBG-TV (Channel 10, now WTAJ) and WFBG-FM (98.1, now “Froggy” WFGY). Gable’ initials are still in the calls there, at least for now, but on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30, the news-talk format on WFBG came to an end, replaced by a loop of NSync’s “Pop” that led up to a Friday debut of Seven Mountains’ “Pop” top-40 format on the AM/translator combo.

That, in turn, meant Friday changes for Forever’s existing top-40 station, WWOT (Hot 100.1). It took the WALY calls and AC format that have long been on 103.9 – and that 103.9 signal in turn flipped to the “WOWY” oldies format that’s also heard on 103.1 in State College. 103.9 has applied for the calls WQWY.

WOWY has also replaced the “Toona” oldies/classic hits format that had been on WTNA 1430 and its 99.7 translator in Altoona, but that may just be a temporary simulcast, we’re hearing.

As in State College, Seven Mountains isn’t changing the top-rated “Froggy” country format on WFGY or the classic rock “Rocky” on WRKY (104.9).

*The disappearance of news-talk leaves an open lane for competitor Lightner Communications, which now has the format to itself on WRTA (1240/98.5); the two companies cooperated in State College to move Forever’s WRSC news-talk format there from 1390/93.3 (also now a “Pop” outlet) to 95.3, one of the Forever signals that Seven Mountains had to spin off in that market.

SPRING IS HERE…

And if you don’t have your Tower Site Calendar, now’s the time!

If you’ve been waiting for the price to come down, it’s now 30 percent off!

This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.

And did you see? Tower Site of the Week is back, featuring this VOA site as it faces an uncertain future. 

Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).

We still have a few of our own calendars left – as well as a handful of Radio Historian Calendars – and we are still shipping regularly.

The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025, too. Why not order both?) 

Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the new calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too! 

 

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Tags: WFBGWHMQWTNAWWOT
Previous Post

Site of the Week 3/24/2023: CFZM 740/CJBC 860, Toronto

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Site of the Week 3/31/2023: More Toronto-Area AM Sites

Scott Fybush

Scott Fybush

Editor/Publisher, NorthEast Radio Watch and Tower Site of the Week

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