McKeesport will remain City of License for WMNY

As they wait for formal FCC approval, Bishop Loran Mann of the Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ tells the McKeesport Daily News that WMNY-AM (1360) have no intention of changing the station’s City of License. Renda Broadcasting announced Thursday that it was donating the station to Pentecostal Temple Development Corporation. The move will make WMNY a sister station to New Kensington-licensed WGBN-AM (1150). “We’re going to continue to do what we already are doing on WGBN,” Mann told the paper. Whether the new two-station operation becomes a simulcast or feature separate programming remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, P.T.D.C. engineers are researching whether or not an expansion in WGBN’s coverage is still necessary while determining where to locate WMNY’s new studios.

Renda’s senior vice president Alan Serena told the paper that with a news/talk format, WMNY wasn’t really that much different from KDKA-AM and other like-formatted stations in town – particularly without “The American Entrepreneur” which ended in 2012 after host Ron Morris’ death. Serena also maintains doubts that if 1360 went back to being strictly a Mon Valley-focused station that it would work in today’s environment.

(H/T: Patrick Cloonan)