WTWS
Encyclopedia : W : WT : WTW : WTWS
WTWS, known as 92.1 The Twister, is a 6,000-watt radio station broadcasting at 92.1 FM in Harrison, MI, with a country music format. Operated as a satellite of public radio station WVXU Cincinnati for several years and owned by Xavier University (then transferred to Cincinnati Classical Public Radio along with WVXU), the station was recently taken over by John Salov, owner of WUPS 98.5 Houghton Lake, MI, and adopted the "Twister" format in June 2006.
For most of its years, WTWS was known as WKKM, "King of Kountry Music", "The Kountry King" and "The Mighty 92". The station signed on in March 1975 by David Carmine (aka Dave Carr to the locals), a former Detroit radio engineer who decided to move his family to northern Michigan. For its first few years, WKKM broadcasted from a trailer next to its transmitter.
If WKKM was legendary for anything, it was their very-low budget presentation. As radio stations started tossing out vinyl in the 1980s for CDs, WKKM decided that it wasn't worth it to make the conversion. In the early 1990s, WKKM became almost exclusively a classic country format when record companies decided to stop shipping out records to radio stations.
One of the biggest factors for WKKM's thiftiness was the fact that during its 27 years of broadcasting, it never broadcasted in stereo. According to Carmine, most of the records were in mono as it was, so why bother spending thousands of dollars to convert the station to stereo? Also, Carmine nicknamed the station "The Best Radio Station Radio Shack Ever Built", since it's rumored that most of the station's equipment came from the electronics retailer.
In 1985, Carmine started an AM simulcast for WKKM, WWKM 1540. The station couldn't come at a worse time since AM radio was good as dead during that period of time. It's well-known that WWKM was a waste of money for Carmine, especially since its 1,000-watt daytime only signal only had a roughly 10-mile radius.
Around 2000, the station had two full-time DJs: Ed Thomas (6 a.m.-1 p.m.) and M. A. Hanson (1-7 p.m.) with a simulcast of Saginaw's WKCQ 98.1 overnights. The station had a news director, Charlie Cobb. WKKM had a full-service feel to it, as the station had religious programming all day Sunday, plus funeral announcements and Paul Harvey News and Comment. In 2001, the station ditched its WKCQ rebroadcast and played pre-recorded music all night.
Carmine wanted to retire and sold WKKM to Xavier University in 2002 for $270,000. Under the deal, WKKM became a public radio station, WVXH and simulcasted Xavier's X-Star Radio Network, fed from WVXU Cincinnati. Xavier also owned two other stations in northern Michigan: WVXA 96.7 Rogers City, MI and WVXM 97.7 Manistee, MI. WWKM, however, was split off as Laurie Foster, Xavier's manager of northern Michigan stations, bought the station from Carmine for only $10. Foster acquired the WKKM call letters, put them on 1540, and made the station automated classic country. However, the station didn't make a profit and Foster sent the license back to the FCC, silencing WWKM 1540 forever in 2004.
WKKM was silenced on June 30, 2002 and brought back on as WVXH on July 18. Xavier did extensive work on the station, adding much-needed new equipment. For the first time ever, the station broadcasted in stereo. WVXH broadcasted X-Star's programs, which included old radio shows, adult standards, jazz, blues and even a rock show Saturday nights.
However, the X-Star Network crumbled. In March 2005, Xavier sold X-Star to Cincinnati Classical Public Radio for $15 million. CCPR wasn't interested in broadcasting outside of Cincinnati, so they put all their stations - WVXH included - on the block. In August, X-Star ceased operations and all of their stations simulcasted WVXU full time.
In March 2006, it was announced that John Salov - owner of WUPS 98.5 Houghton Lake - was buying WVXH for $200,000, a $70,000 loss for Xavier/CCPR. Although 92.1 is once again a country-music station, it now plays contemporary hit country, and many listeners feel it lacks the low-budget charm of the old WKKM.
As for the other two former affiliates of X-Star in Michigan, WVXM 97.7 Manistee is in the process of being sold to Synergy Media, owners of classic rock WWKR 94.1 in Pentwater. Synergy has already changed the format on 97.7 to classic country (with some of the records played from the original vinyl, similar to the old WKKM), but has announced in local papers that it plans to institute an easy listening format. The calls for 97.7 will change to WMLQ. WVXA 96.7 Rogers City was purchased by Midwestern Broadcasting, which changed its calls to WRGZ and is simulcasting its country WATZ 99.3 FM Alpena on 96.7. Ironically, the Rogers City station had the WMLQ calls previous to being WVXA (with an adult standards format as "Silver 97," and previous to that, adult contemporary as "Mellow-Q"), and also originally operated on 97.7.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.