Pittsburgh, PA Radio News

[TheFugitive]

Longtime Pittsburgh radio personality Jim Quinn passed away over the weekend.  He was 82.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/jim-quinn-pittsburgh-dj-and-conservative-radio-host-dies-at-82/ar-AA1BXs7D?ocid=BingNewsSerp

After stints as a DJ with radio stations in Ashtabula and Dayton, Ohio he came to Pittsburgh in 1967 to work at KQV.  It was there he met Rush Limbaugh, and would eventually follow him into conservative talk radio.  After leaving town for stints in New York and Buffalo he would return to Pittsburgh with 13Q (WKTQ) and from there went on to WTAE.

In the 80's he was hired by B-94, then a top-rated station, to co-host their morning show with "Banana Don" Jefferson. This ended in controversy after Quinn cracked an off-color joke about their newswoman which sent her running out of the studio in tears.  She sued for sexual harassment, using her eventual settlement to put herself through law school.  B-94 fired Quinn, who sued the station for age discrimination and likewise got a settlement.

He was then hired to do the morning show at WRRK, then having a Classic Rock format, and over time his show evolved from music to political talk.  Rose Soma-Tennent became his co-host and the Quinn and Rose in the Morning Show had a very successful run.  In the early 2000's it moved to iHeart's 104.7 and was syndicated to a number of other stations in the region.  The show was canceled shortly before 104.7 flipped to country music.

In recent years Quinn continued to host a daily morning show by himself from a studio in his home, which was broadcast on one station in Rochester, NY (owned by an old DJ friend) and available for subscription streaming.  It was briefly carried on WBGG a few years ago as well.

[TheFugitive]

Since leaving retail management in the late 1990's due to failing knees and being assigned to a store in a part of town where my physical safety was in jeopardy, I made a career change and have spent the past quarter-century working in IT services.

My employer is affiliated with the Pittsburgh Technology Council, a chamber of commerce type organization that seeks to promote tech industry growth and employment in the Pittsburgh area.

They produce a weekly show to update the public on local happenings with tech.  The show is called Tech Vibe Radio.

It airs on KDKA Radio, AM 1020, on Sundays at 6AM.

Interesting that the organization charged with promoting the growth of high tech chooses to do so on an AM radio station.  ;)

[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.

Forever Media has sold two more local stations.  One, WKPL 92.1 in Ellwood City, PA, had been carrying a classic hits format known as The Pickle.  It was sold to Family Life Radio which carries a Christian preaching format.

Then Forever sold WOGI at 104.3 FM to the same buyer. It had been airing the Froggy country format.  This station came with a repeater at 105.5 that covers the central part of Pittsburgh.  Family Life moved their programming here and in turn flipped 92.1 over to Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting which owns the local NPR affiliate, WESA, as well as eclectic music outlet WYEP.

92.1 appears destined to be a repeater for one of those formats covering Elwood City, New Castle, and other areas to the northwest along the Ohio border.