WUZZ – the callsign that would become a format
October 18, 2023As of today, Southern Belle Media Family, LLC stations have taken the call letters from one of their two New Castle-licensed outlets, switched them with the other New Castle outlet and created a format network from the first set of letters.
Today, WKST-AM is no longer on 1200, but now on 1280. WUZZ moves to 1200 and now sports a Classic Hits format WUZZ Radio with the positioner “The Greatest Hits That Ever Was”. Poor grammar aside, and according to Radio Insight, the new WUZZ Radio will serve four of the smaller Northwestern PA markets – Of course 1200 AM and 97.9 W250CW New Castle; WTIV (1230; 105.3 W287DC Titusville); WHMJ (99.3 Franklin; formerly “Majic”); and WXMJ (104.5 Cambridge Springs).
Hosts include Lonny Boy (most recently of WMVL Meadville) will handle mornings; KC O’Day (from WALY Altoona) will track middays and Chris Randolph will continue the tracks in the afternoon. “The Nightclub” will be handled by Kelli Gates.
Does WKST moving to 1280 mean the news/talk format is moving with it? No. The station and 97.5 W248DJ is simulcasting nearby Grove City sister WYLE (95.1) with it’s “Willie” classic country format.
Seven Mountains Media is making a habit of erasing news/talk formats for what I presume are less expensive music formats. Yes, people will tell me I should not invoke the old and allegedly outdated “public interest, convenience and necessity” policy, but is there still reason to believe any information comes out of the stations with changed formats? Just wondering.
Nothing comes out of it. Same old tired hash on the airwaves. That is why I listen to 1320 Wjas and Kdka and 770 Wabc.
Yes. now we have another local community with no local news and programming and the conglomerates wonder why broadcast listenership is down and less and less relevant…
Maybe the LPFM can do something relevant for the area.
Wasn’t the WKST calls originally on AM 1280 decades ago?
WUZZ at 1200 comes in better than 1280 in Pittsburgh, so that’s an improvement. I like 1200’s sound quality right now too, they’re dynamic and uncompressed, and that raw sound is refreshing over most of the other stations that sound all the same. They could widen their bandwidth out from the current 8.5 to 10 khz audio though.
Now the area has two Willie country stations, 560 out of Frostburg MD, and 1280 AM.
Radio in the public interest, convenience and necessity? I would say it still is, just not as much of a priority as when it was the dominant audio medium. AM radio is still important for public safety in disasters, it gets through on simple receivers when higher tech fails. Emergency service should be a big focus of AM radio now.