Pittsburgh, PA Radio News

[TheFugitive]

Krenn had been making weekly appearances on the morning show on KDKA-AM prior to this announcement.

I know because I had to listen to my mom complain about him all the time.  His humor is a bit
edgy for her, and for most of KD's audience.

[ynkeesfn82]

As part of lay-offs nationwide CBS Radio Pittsburgh makes the following cuts.

Y-108 - Jimmy Roach is out from the morning show.

Star 101.7 Midday Jock Scott Alexander is out as is Night time personality Lindsay.

[TheFugitive]

Y-108 - Jimmy Roach is out from the morning show.

That is sad news.  I am not a huge country music fan, but Jimmy Roach has been a fixture on
radio in this town for over three decades.  And by all accounts is a very nice guy.

He and Steve Hansen were the morning team on WDVE when I was a kid.  I wonder if he
might go back to the Forever Broadcasting "Froggy" country stations where he worked in
the interim?  The guy has got some fabulous pipes.

[ynkeesfn82]

WAVL AM 910 in the Pittsburgh suburbs is off the air until they find a buyer. Prior to the station going off the air they were a Religious station. $150,000 is what they want for it which is 5,000 watts by day, but only 69 watts at night. The station is licensed to Apollo and was located in Kittanning.

[TheFugitive]

I don't think they'll get $150K for it.   Not when WZUM, with a signal centered in a much more
highly populated area, was sold for the price of a gently used sedan.  Apollo/Kittanning area is
comparatively lightly populated, especially for a 70w. night signal.

At one time this church had an agreement to swap licenses with 1360 AM (then WPTT) in
McKeesport and move 910's transmitter to the Bridgeville area in southern Allegheny County.
This would have given them better signal coverage over Pittsburgh for their talk lineup.

Of course that station hit the skids financially and took Renda Broadcasting with it.
Though a construction permit was granted the deal never went through, and 1360 was
eventually donated to another church.

[TheFugitive]

WBGG AM-970 (ESPN Radio) has put an FM translator on the air at
106.3

[ynkeesfn82]

WEDO 810 in Mckeesport a station featuring a mix of Religious Programming, Talk Programming, and Music programming might be getting an FM translator at 92.3 FM. WEDO was just sold for $175,000. Programming most likely will be changing somewhat. And although 810 will still have to sign off at night, being on 92.3 will allow WEDO to feature 24 hour programming.

http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourmckeesport/yourmckeesportmore/9096547-74/wedo-stevens-station#axzz3luHp6JdM

[TheFugitive]

Same owner who owns WKHB (620AM and 94.1FM), WKFB (770AM and 97.5FM), and WKVE (103.1FM)

WKVE is a classic rock station that was licensed to Waynesburg, PA about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh.
He moved it to the east and put a transmitter atop Chestnut Ridge, with an elevation of about 3000 feet.
As a result it puts out a killer signal over most of Western PA.

WKHB mainly runs brokered medical shows.  There is a local chiropractor who buys about 20 hrs. per week on there.  Overnights though they play commercial-free music from the 70's and 80's.  WKFB plays mostly doo-wop and oldies, primarily spun by local businessman Frank Dittig who goes by the name of Frankie Day.  The FMs for both of these stations allow me to get commercial free music in the evening and overnight hours.

I wonder what they are planning to program in that spot for WEDO? I listen to the old time radio shows they run before signoff.  That would be an interesting choice.

WEDO is one of two local stations (the other being WAMO) which have actually had their towers cut-down by vandals.

[TheFugitive]

Another thought....

How is a low-power FM in McKeesport on 92.3 going to affect the University of Pittsburgh's
campus station on 92.1?

As it is that station only runs 17 watts off the top of the Cathedral of Learning.
And it is very directional, having to try and protect WPKL in Ellwood City.
Back in the 90's they already had to move off of 98.5 when 98.3 in Charleroi
got a change of license and moved in closer to the city.

Pitt fought a 25 year battle to get on the FM dial, and now low-power FM stations
appear to be a dime a dozen.

[TheFugitive]

Authorities in Connellsville, Pennsylvania are moving ahead with the demolition of the former
studio building of WCVI. 

http://triblive.com/news/fayette/9288359-74/wcvi-connellsville-projects#axzz3pEKMTJce

The station broadcast at 1340 AM before going dark (as WBGI) in 2012.
Reportedly as WCVI they operated illegally (and apparently unknowingly) for several years
after station owners failed to file the proper FCC license renewal paperwork on time.  WCVI
was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates Radio Network and was playing syndicated oldies at
the time it went dark.

As you can see the studio building had seen better days.

[ynkeesfn82]

It's a battle of the ugliest buildings that used to house radio stations. The building below is located at 610-620 Main Street in New Britain, Connecticut and was the first home of WPRX 1120 AM in 1993 after they moved out of Bristol. The building has been abandoned for almost 20 years. Many buyers promised to rehab/demolish it but they never did. The City of New Britain owned it for a while and sold it to a developer in July 2015. They were given a stipulation that the building must be finished by a certain date or ownership would revert back to The City of New Britain.



Photo Credit: Vision Government Solutions.

I first saw this building several years ago driving by. I remember seeing a For Sale Sign in front of it and looking up at the smashed out windows. I remember thinking to myself "No thanks. If I had the money to buy a building I'd want to buy one with windows.  ::) "

A couple years ago a friend of mine was staying at an alcohol treatment facility near this building. He said one of the neighboring buildings was rundown with shady looking people hanging out there. I wonder if this was the building.

[TheFugitive]

There is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh called East Liberty that was absolutely overrun with
these types of buildings a decade ago.  Known mainly for gang shootings and dilapidated run-down
properties, you never went there after dark.

Flash forward a decade and Google decides to locate their regional headquarters in a former
Nabisco bakery in this neighborhood.  Voila!  Almost overnight it becomes the cool, hip, happening
place to be.  Lots of buildings like these that seemed beyond salvage were suddenly snapped-up
and renovated.  Cool old Victorian houses are being renovated and the whole neighborhood is
coming back to life.

The only downside to this is that the gentrification is pricing the former criminal element out
of their former hovels, so they are now infesting a couple of nearby suburbs.

[TheFugitive]

WZUM, the little station that could (play music on the AM band), is on the market.

http://www.pbrtv.com/wzum-on-the-market/

I have some mutual acquaintances with the current ownership.  They bought it out of bankruptcy
a couple of years ago for the price of a gently used sedan.  I don't suspect they are letting it go for
the same price.

[TheFugitive]

Pittsburgh radio legend Wendy King has reportedly passed away at age 92.

King and her husband Ed hosted the Party Line program on KDKA radio from 1951
until his untimely death from a heart attack in November, 1971.

Party Line was a nightly call-in trivia show where callers could win small prizes like KDKA
can openers for having the correct answer.  Perhaps unique among radio talk shows in that
the caller's voices were not put on the air.  Only Ed and Wendy's side of the conversation was
heard by radio audiences.  With KD's 50kW clear channel signal they were widely listened to
throughout the Eastern US and Canada.

After his death Wendy King declined to continue Party Line on her own.  Though she continued to voice commercials for many years, primarily for AAA.

[TheFugitive]

WAVL AM 910 in the Pittsburgh suburbs is off the air until they find a buyer. Prior to the station going off the air they were a Religious station. $150,000 is what they want for it which is 5,000 watts by day, but only 69 watts at night. The station is licensed to Apollo and was located in Kittanning.

No buyer yet, but WAVL is back on the air broadcasting a syndicated Classic Hits format
called The Mountain.

[TheFugitive]

WZUM-AM 1550 has been sold.

The new owners are Pittsburgh Public Media, which operates a jazz formatted station
on 88.1 FM from just over the border in Bethany, WV.  (the former campus station
for Bethany College, which they sold a couple years back).

Looks like their plan is to ring the area with small jazz stations.
Reported sale price was $75,000.   The current owners bought this station
for around $16,000 a couple of years back.

[TheFugitive]

Pittsburgh Public Media has completed it's purchase of AM 1550, WZUM in Braddock.
It intends to simulcast the jazz format it has been broadcasting on 88.1 FM out of
Bethany, WV for the past couple of years, and eventually to add an FM translator.

The switchover to jazz from the current Motown/R&B format is slated to happen
at noon on Saturday.

[TheFugitive]

Stations WLSW-FM, Scottdale, PA and WQTW-AM, Latrobe, PA, have been sold to Broadcast Communications, Inc., which already owns a cluster of suburban stations that include WKHB, WKFB, WEDO and WKVE.  WLSW has applied for a power increase, and the two acquired stations are currently running automated hits from the 60's, 70's and 80's (the same package used by WKHB in the evenings after their infomercial programming is done for the day).

The stations went up for sale after long-time owner Stan Wall passed away.

[giantsfan2016]

From Radioinsight.com

Pentecostal Temple Development Corporation sells Gospel 1150 WMNY New Kensington/Pittsburgh PA to Bhavna Gupta and Gagan Deep’s Radio 1150 LLC and Cambria Hill Realty for $180,000. The Gospel format will shift back to sister 1360 WGBN McKeesport.

[TheFugitive]

WGBN was originally WMCK, which became WIXZ for much of its history.
This is the station where Rush Limbaugh launched his radio career.

They had a strange two-site tower arrangement.  The day signal came from a tower in the
Hazelwood section of Pittsburgh.  The night signal came from the original tower site near
the Olympia Shopping Center in McKeesport.  The Pentacostal Temple was evicted from the
daytime tower, reportedly for nonpayment of rent.  The nighttime site is reportedly in very bad
repair and is hardly useable.  WGBN has been off the air more than they've been on in
recent months.

Speculation is that WMNY was sold to raise money to repair the McKeesport tower site for WGBN.
WMNY was sold to a real estate developer so likely it will go dark and the tower site will
be developed for housing.

The Pentacostal Temple is run by The Rev. Loran Mann,  a onetime DJ and longtime reporter
for WIIC/WPXI Channel 11 in Pittsburgh.  Originally the call letters were swapped with WMNY being on 1360 and WGBN on 1150.   Renda Broadcasting donated the license to the Church several years ago and took a tax write-off.  Likely they knew what rough shape that tower site was in.

[giantsfan2016]

"Broadway" formerly of WWYZ Country 92.5 in Hartford takes over mornings at Y-108 in Pittsburgh.

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/120098/y108-pittsburgh-goes-broadway-mornings/

[TheFugitive]

KDKA radio is reporting that Dr. James Winer has passed away.

He was a local chiropractor who for many years ran a holistic treatment clinic
called the Winer Wellness Center.  He promoted his unorthodox views on health
by buying up 30+ hours per week on local radio stations to plug his clinic and
answer listener calls.

His show would run on as many as five stations.  His passing is sure to create some
frantic situations for radio ad sales people who now have to go out and rebook
all of that time.

I will say this for the guy, he could filibuster with the best of them.  He could ramble
on and on about a whole assortment of offbeat topics while waiting for the next caller
(which, on a 500 watt suburban station, could be quite some time).  Topics he'd typically
discuss included:

*Vitamins and Supplements (he had a store in his office, it was a sales pitch).
*Vegan Diet (he was a strong proponent)
*Anti-Vaccines (he was dead-set against them and would advise callers on getting around mandatory school vaccinations)
*Politics (he didn't like Republicans one bit)
*Brandeis University (his alma matter, which he would state was "more selective than Harvard" then expound on it for 30 minutes at a time).
*France (he studied there and apparently came away thinking that they did absolutely everything better than Americans).
*The "Medical Model" (he was dead-set against prescription meds and standard treatments for serious diseases like cancer, pushing natural alternatives instead).
* Various conspiracy theories on how big pharma companies + the government were conspiring to suppress knowledge of natural treatments that actually work.

One of the disturbing things about him was that despite being host of a talk show, he was incredibly rude to callers.  (except on KDKA where apparently they read him the riot act).   He would get some 85-year old lady calling who was probably hard of hearing to begin with.  He would call in from his office on a five-dollar phone he probably purchased at Big Lots and mumble the very long names of various supplements.  The caller would not understand and would ask him to repeat himself, which caused him to become exasperated, whereupon he would begin shouting.

(This would cause me to think about a girl I dated in high-school whose name was also Winer, and to hope for her sake that this guy wasn't a relative)

I have occasion to drive past his clinic from time to time, and the parking lot is nearly always full. 
Though I suppose that having the doctor who runs the Wellness Clinic suddenly drop dead is not good for business.

[TheFugitive]

WMNY-AM 1150, New Kensington-Pittsburgh, is now broadcasting a Hindi music format.

There are a lot of Indians living in Pittsburgh (we don't have a very large Hispanic population
so they may be our largest immigrant group).  So this could be a pretty successful format choice.

The new owners are Indian and have applied for an FM translator.  They purchased the station
from the Pentecostal Temple, a large church that also owns WGBN 1360.   Supposedly proceeds
of the sale will go to fund badly needed transmitter repairs at WGBN.

[TheFugitive]

On the far edge of the Pittsburgh area market (yes, a little sliver of Maryland is included in that)
WFRB-AM in Frostburg, Maryland has flipped formats from News/Talk to Classic Country.

It was a country station when I discovered them back in the mid-70's so in a sense
they are coming full-circle.

[giantsfan2016]

A Pastor on WTYM 1370 has been arrested for sexually assaulting a minor.

http://www.pbrtv.com/wtyms-croyle-arrested-and-charged/

[TheFugitive]

This story has unfortunately been blown off the front pages
by the release of a Grand Jury report detailing incidents of sexual abuse
carried out by over 300 Catholic Priests in Pennsylvania.

[TheFugitive]

The Quinn and Rose in the Morning Show will be returning to Pittsburgh airwaves on Sept. 24.

They will be airing on WBGG, the local ESPN radio affiliate, weekdays from 8 to 10 AM (I find it interesting that they are willing to bump the national Golic and Wingo show.  Quinn must be paying well for the airtime. They do politics and it will be total break from the ESPN sports format).

Rose was released from her solo show on the local Salem station a few months back.
Quinn and Rose worked together for many years on WRRK-FM before going to then-Clear Channel
and being syndicated for a few years.

For the past few years Quinn has been doing a solo show heard on just 2 stations
(WYSL in Rochester, New York and WAVL in Avella, PA) along with a subscription podcast.

[TheFugitive]

"Broadway" formerly of WWYZ Country 92.5 in Hartford takes over mornings at Y-108 in Pittsburgh.

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/120098/y108-pittsburgh-goes-broadway-mornings/

Broadway is apparently out at Y-108.

http://www.pbrtv.com/y108-lacking-morning-show/

[TheFugitive]

Classic Hits WQZS-FM in Meyersdale, PA has left the air after the FCC revoked their license.

The station's owner, Roger Wahl, had pled guilty in 2020 to having hidden cameras in the home of his former girlfriend and then using photos of her undressed to recruit men on internet dating platforms to come to her home and rape her.  FCC rules state that you must be of good moral character to hold a broadcast license and since Wahl had pled guilty to a felony they began the process of revoking his license.  He fought a four-year legal battle filling appeals, and at one point attempted to sell the station to his daughter for $10.  The FCC issued a final revocation order on April 4 and the station went off the air later that day, posting to their Facebook site that they had signed-off for good.

[TheFugitive]

Educational Media Foundation, the nonprofit which operates the national K-LOVE network of Christian pop stations, has acquired WOGH-FM 103.5 from Forever Media.  The full-power station, licensed to Burgettstown, PA but having it's transmitter on the WTOV-TV tower in nearby Steubenville, Ohio, had been airing the Froggy country format.  It will convert to nonprofit status and presumably air K-LOVE or one of it's sister formats like Air 1.

EMF acquired WOGI-FM 98.3 from Forever Media fifteen years ago, and it has served as the primary signal for K-LOVE in Pittsburgh.