iHeart moving Pittsburgh cluster
April 19, 2021iHeartMedia Pittsburgh is moving its stations out of the “Flashcube” (AKA – 200 Fleet Street) in Green Tree during the 3rd quarter of this year. The stations include WDVE (102.5); WWSW (94.5); WKST (96.1); WPGB (104.7); WXDX (105.9) and WBGG (970). WDVE has been the Jacob Center location since long before ownership consolidation. Their new home according to the Post-Gazette will be a new structure built by Burns Scalo at 44 Abele Road in Abele Office Park in South Fayette Township.
Meanwhile, WJAS (1320) has been housed one floor below the iHeart cluster since Pittsburgh Radio Partners bought the station from Renda in 2014. Now that it has been sold to St. Barnabas Broadcasting and PBRTV understands a local engineer built a new studio on their grounds in Gibsonia, we suspect 1320 will move to a new home as well.
Mark Madden actually spilled the beans on this a couple of months ago on his show, as he mentioned that he’ll have a longer commute from the North Hills but is happy that there is now a Dunkin’ Donuts on his way to work. He said at the time the move is scheduled for August.
Wow.. but I can’t be too surprised by this, since radio broadcasting has been moving to virtual studios and to the cloud for a few years now. Hosts can do their shows from home or other locations, sounding almost as good as if they were together in the same room.
I hope they can still be in touch with the community, talk to band members and news makers like before, but then, a lot of that has gone on line as well, as radio has taken that turn and become more nationalized.
It affects me since I live 2 blocks from the Flashcube and they used to call on me to come down in my dog costume when the Fur convention was in town, and I could walk right over. I got to visit both their old studio, and their upgraded ‘conference room’ style studio, and it was a nice experience that won’t be able to happen any longer.
No more radio station logo trucks always haunting that parking lot either, I’d better go get some pictures.
Boomer
Hopefully when they move, WJAS will bring back the Golden Oldies!
Wouldn’t that be something?! 😀 But they’ve just changed to a more-local line up of talking heads
They’ve changed something at WJAS, the sound has a narrow quality right now, like a remote broadcast through Comrex.
My mom would love those golden oldies, the ‘Music Of Your Life’, she listened regularly, to Bogut and Wheeler.
Boomer
Meanwhile in Cleveland, Iheart is soon to move from Oak Tree Blvd in Independence to a location downtown.