WABY
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WABY (Moon Radio) is the callsign of an adult standards radio station licenced to Mechanicville, New York and serving New York's Capital District. WABY is owned by the Anastos Media Group (an ownership concern headed by veteran New York City TV anchor Ernie Anastos) and broadcasts on 1160 kHz with 5 kilowatts daytime, 570 watts nighttime from a tower site located just north of Mechanicville. WABY's programming is simulcasted on WUAM 900 khz, a station located in Saratoga Springs.
The current WABY has no connection outside call letters to the original home of those call letters at 1400 kHz which today is WAMC(AM).
[edit] History
WMVI signed on the air in 1979 at 1170khz with 250 watts, daytime only operation. It was orignally owned by WPTR legend "Boom Boom Branigan" (Joe Motto) who also owned other small AM stations around the Northeast US. The station had a hybrid format of oldies, standards and big-band music, which underwent very little change until the early 1990's. During the late 80's, WMVI had secured a construction permit to switch to 1160khz with 50,000 watts daytime power and modest nighttime power. However, ownership could not afford the upgrades the station needed for high-power, directional operation and the permit was left to expire. In the mid-90's, WMVI did secure another permit to switch to 1160khz with 5kw days / 570w nights, non-directional. Coming under Branigan's ownership once again in late 1995, WMVI would return after a brief period being off the air with an oldies/variety format which featured Branigan himself as the centerpiece of the station. Though the format proved popular with local listeners, the station had an extremely difficult time retaining advertising accounts due to repeated transmitter & 'telco' STL failures, forcing the station off the air repeatedly, sometimes for days at a time. As station employees moved to more secure jobs and operating funds became scarce, Branigan leased the station in 1998 to a group which aired Black Gospel music. Again, money shortages and aging, unreliable equipment forced Branigan to sell the station outright.
In August 2000, Anastos Media bought WMVI and brought it back on the air as a testing format of 1960s-70s music as Sunny 1160 before entering a simulcast with co-owned pop-standards station WUAM in Saratoga Springs. Two years later, WMVI would take the abandoned WABY calls as a tribute to its former rival and the station whose death led to its rebirth.
[edit] The Original WABY
The WABY calls, though relatively new to the 1160 frequency, are a heritage callsign in the Capital District having spent 68 years (1934-2002) on one station, the longest run in the market besides that of WGY. That station came into the Albany market in 1934 when Al Kelert moved radio station WGLC from Hudson Falls, New York to Albany in turn making the first station to broadcast from that city (though not the first one to originate, a distinction held by WOKO, now WDDY). WABY originally broadcasted on 1370 kHz at 250 watts, moving to 1400 kHz in 1941 during the NARBA frequency shift.
The station provided the typical mix of popular music and network programming throughout most of its first 30 years of service. In 1961, the station flipped to a high energy Top 40 format, but was short lived as the competition in that format was intense. By 1968, WABY flipped to a Christian fomat which it would keep until the station was sold in 1982 to local businessman Paul Bendatt who flipped WABY to standards, the first such dedicated station of that format in the market. Getting many key market names, WABY would spend the next 15 years as one of the highest rated standards stations in the United States, eventually adding an FM simulcast on 94.5 MHz in 1995.
In February 1999, Bendatt sold his stations to Tele-Media, Inc. which flipped the AM side to an all-news format by day with simulcasting of the FM (which itself would flip to adult contemporary that summer) nights and weekends. This arrangement remained through Tele-Media's ownership of the station through Tele-Media's sale of WABY and WKLI (now WBOE) to Galaxy Communications in August 2001 and through the flip of 94.5 FM to Classic Rock.
On April 22, 2002, the WABY calls would leave 1400 kHz as Galaxy replaced it with the WHTR calls as it launched a talk radio simulcast with new move in 93.7 FM. The talk format was short lived and that August both 1400 and 93.7 flipped to alternative rock. Galaxy would later sell 1400 to Northeast Public Radio (WAMC) in February 2003 in a sale that saw some controversy from critics of Galaxy CEO Ed Levine (who blew off the idea of brokering the station to minority audiences, a view seen by some as possibly racist) and WAMC CEO Alan S. Chartock (who was seen as buying the station for the sake of buying the station given the WAMC signals inside its coverage area).
[edit] External links
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| Capital District | |
| Outside the Metro |
560 · 930 · 1230 · 1340 · 1440 · 1490 · 1570 |
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| Radio stations in the Saratoga Springs / Glens Falls market (Arbitron #unranked) |
| AM Stations
590 | 810 | 980 | 1160 | 1230 | 1250 | 1300 | 1330 | 1340 | 1400 | 1410 | 1450 | 1460 | 1540 |
| In-Market FM Stations
89.7 | 90.3 | 90.9 | 91.1 | 91.9 | 92.3 | 92.7 | 94.1 | 94.7 | 95.5 | 95.9 | 96.7 | 97.5 | 98.5 |
| Out-of-Market FM Stations serving/available in Saratoga
88.3 | 89.1 | 91.5 | 93.7 | 98.3 | 99.5 | 100.9 | 103.1 | 103.9 | 104.9 |
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