WZAD
Encyclopedia : W : WZ : WZA : WZAD
WZAD is a radio station licensed to Wurtsboro, New York an 97.3 FM. They are owned by Cumulus Media. The station offers Country Music along with its simulcast partner 94.3 FM WKXP (which had been playing Country music since October of 2003). Until March of 2006 though WZAD simulcast the Adult Contemporary format on WCZX 97.7 FM Hyde Park as part of "Mix 97".
History
WZAD 97.3 signed on in 1990 with an Oldies format playing the hits of 1955 to 1985. They had live morning and afternoon shows but were automated the rest of the day. Dyson Broadcasting began managing WZCX which serves Poughkeepsie and Kingston in 1993. That station was known as "Oldies 97-7". In 1995 Dyson began managing WZAD 97.3 in Wurtsboro serving the southern part of the Hudson Valley such as Newburgh and Middletown. They combined the best of the WCZX staff and the WZAD staff onto the one station and began simulcasting WCZX on WZAD. The station then became known as "Oldies 97-7/Oldies 97-3". They used the liner "All Oldies All The Time/Good Times & Great Oldies". The combined station also moved to Poughkeepsie into state of the art facilities. Dyson would buy these stations outright in 1996.
By 1996 the station had a winning staff including Bob Miller (mornings), Brian Jones (program director/news/morning show co-host), Beth Christy, Randy Turner, Nick Robbins, Marty Allen, Ken Elder, Rick McCaffery, and many others. Rick hosted a show on WEOK for many years called the "Solid Gold Jukebox" on Friday nights and his show moved to Oldies 97-7/Oldies 97-3 by 1995. This show focused on Doo Wop and pre 1964 oldies. Max Kinkle formerly of WCBS-FM hosted the morning show for a couple months in 1996. Also in 1996 the original building housing WEOK/WPDH (which was attached to their new facility) was torn down and the stations built onto their building doubling its size. Additionally Dyson owned WKNY radio running a MOR format in Kingston, WRRV 92.7 Middletown & WRRD 96.5 Poughkeepsie which simulcast an alternative rock format, and WALL 1340 which was talk and news by then.
Musically at this point "Oldies 97-7/Oldies 97-3" was playing about 60% of its music from 1964-1969, 35% from 1955-1963, and 5% from 1970-1973. Ratings were high for the station throughout the Hudson Valley. The playlist was also very deep as well playing a wide variety of oldies.
The Aurora Years
In 1999 the station changed very slightly. The station now simply became known as "Oldies 97". Brian Jones moved over to become News Director of the entire cluster of radio stations and Freddie Coleman who had previously worked at WPDH moved in as Program Director. Under him the station continued with its deep oldies format but modified to play music going up to 1979 and now playing 3 or 4 per hour rather than one every hour. They also added a handful of 1980's songs by oldies artists but still played a decent amount of 50's and early 60's music. In 2000 the station along with the entire group of Dyson stations was sold to Aurora Broadcasting. By then WRRV/WRRD, WALL, and WKNY moved into the Poughkeepsie facilities after the building was enlarged for a third time.Under Aurora the stations did not change substantially and upper management stayed put. Freddie Coleman left late in 2000 to pursue other interests and at this point afternoon air personality Randy Turner added the duties of Program Director while ramaining host of the afternoon show. In 2001 Oldies 97 hit Number One in the ratings. Still Aurora was not in Broadcasting to stay and put their entire company up for sale in the Spring of 2001.
Cumulus Evolution to Adult Contemporary
In the fall of 2001 Cumulus announced the plans to purchase WCZX/WZAD Oldies 97 along with the rest of the company of Aurora broadcast stations. When the overnight air-person at WCZX resigned and went part-time Aurora decided not to fill the position and reverted to jockless automation on overnights only. The main reason was because they were waiting for the Cumulus sale to be made final.In the late winter of 2002 the sale of all the stations was final. Shortly after the long-time upper-management team was replaced with Cumulus' own people they brought in from other stations they own. In the coming years some of the stations would abruptly change while WCZX/WZAD would begin a slow evolution out of oldies.
In the Spring of 2002 Oldies 97 would phase out "Good Times & Great Oldies/All Oldies All The Time" in favor of "Oldies 97 - The Hudson Valley's Best Mix". Music changes were initially subtle. The station increased 80's music to 2 per hour, decreased 50's to one per hour, and early 60's to one per hour. The rest of the hour was half late 60's and half 70's. By the summer of 2002 the station dropped the pre 1964 oldies altogether except on the "Solid Gold Jukebox". The station modified the format to be 1/3 60's, 70's, and 80's. But until the end of August the station was known as Oldies 97-The Hudson Valley's Best Music Mix. The Oldies name was finally dropped Labor Day weekend and the station became known as "Mix 97 - The Hudson Valley's Best Music Mix".
In the fall of 2002 Mix 97 had evolved to a pop music station playing the hits from 1964 to 1989. In November though Cunulus began a management deal to run 94.3 WBPM. The station is locally owned but had been managed by Clear Channel Communications. They were satellite/automated oldies and known as "Kool 94.3". Cumulus kept the calls, name, and format. But they dropped the satellite programming. They moved Nick Robbins to mornings along with several other Mix 97 air-personalities to "Kool 94.3". They also would move Rick McCaffrey's Solid Gold Jukebox to Kool 94.3 as well.
IN January of 2003 MIx 97 again modified dropping most of the 60's music but still playing a big Beatles or Motown hit per hour. The station now was modified to play equal amounts of music from the 70's, 80's, and 90's. WBPM Kool 94.3 adopted a similar format to what WCZX was playing in 1998 mixing in 50's and 60's music with a few early 70's songs.
By the Summer of 2003 Mix 97 was still receiving very high ratings and Kool 94.3 was doing decently and increasing in the ratings. By the Fall Mix 97 began mixing in recent hits from 2000-2002 a couple times per hour. Still Kool 94.3 would be shut down in October of 2003 and replaced with a Country format known as WKXP Kicks 94.3. Beth Christy would move there and became program director and middays. Kicks has done poorly in the ratings and recently became known as "The Wolf".
As for Mix 97, they began adding current product by November of 2003 playing one every couple hours. By the spring of 2004 though Mix 97 had evolved completely into a gold based adult contemporary music station. They were now playing two currents per hour along with a couple recent hits an hour. Still the upbeat hits of the 70's, 80's, and 90's continued and continues to drive this station. Also in March of 2004 Mix 97 added a syndicated satellite show called the John Tesh show. This show is a music intensive common sense advise persoanlity show playing Adult Contemporary cuts interspersed with advise. Its positioned as an alternative to a Love Songs Show such as Deliliah which airs on competitors WHUD 100.7 and WRNQ 92.1.
WZAD The Wolf Today
Mix 97 continued on as an adult contemporary radio station and received good ratings. Still some changes were recently made. Long-time afternoon personality and program director Randy Turner (who served the station VERY WELL the entire time) left at the end of February 2006. Also the simulcast with 97.3 WZAD was ended in March 2006. WZAD then began simulcasting 94.3 "The Wolf" which is a ratings troubled Country format. The hope is that the signal on 97.3 will give the Country station ratings in the southern part of the Hudson Valley. So now Mix 97 is strictly on 97.7 FM. They do reach the southern Hudson Valley better than 94.3 FM does so its hoped ratings on Mix 97 continue to be good. Therefore 97.3 WZAD is now a Country Music station.Airstaff
Mornings - Brandi Hunter
Middays - Beth Christy
Afternoons - Buzz Stephens
Overnights - After Midnight with Blair Garner
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.