WDPT

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(now WHIO-FM)

Until November 2006, WHIO-FM was known as WDPT (for " Dayton's PoinT") "95.7 The Point." Licensed to Piqua, Ohio. the station now simulcasts the programming of News/Talk 1290 WHIO in Dayton...hence the WHIO-FM call letters resurrected at 95.7..formerly used for many years at 99.1 with a beautiful music format before becoming "new country" WHKO "K-99.1 FM" The format and call letter change took place October 30, 2006.

[edit] History

From 2000 until 2006,"The Point" aired classic hits from the late 1970s and 1980s and was briefly simulcast on WDTP, 95.3 in Xenia before reverting back to the WZLR calls as classic rock-formatted "The Eagle." Before that it was WCLR at first as "Clear 95" airing easy listening music (as did its predecessor WPTW-FM for many years) when the transmitter was moved from its studios to its present location near the rural community of Houston just north of Piqua in 1986. It switched to "light and easy favorites" in 1989 and again to 50s/60s/early 70s oldies as "Kool 95" in early 1993 with repeater station WZLR in Xenia (the former WDJK) and later to the "Oldies 95" branding after the station was sold by founder/owner Richard Hunt (dba:WPTW Radio Inc....later Clear 95 Inc.) to Cox in the late 1990s. On January 24, 2007, Cox filed an application to move WHIO-FM to Sharonville, OH. Sharonville, is a suburb of Cincinnati.

WPTW started as a daytime AM station in 1947 with its FM station commencing operations in 1960. After FCC rules changed over daytime AM stations operating on Mexican "clear channel" frequencies, WPTW-AM was finally given approval by the FCC in 1986 to broadcast 24 hours a day....hence WPTW-FM ceased simulcasting a good chunk of WPTW-AM's local news and sports programming and embraced a separate format and image with its call letter change. Hunt was also a co-owner of Valley Antenna Systems (dba:Piqua CATV)..later absorbed by Centel Communications in the 1980s and by Time-Warner in the 1990s and for many years he owned WSOO-AM and WSUE-FM in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan as a separate entity before his retirement in the late 1990s.

WPTW-AM, now owned by Frontier Broadcasting still operates today as a locally originating station in Piqua and maintains a working studio for the FM operation which relays the audio from the Dayton studio to the Houston FM transmitter.

WZLR was originally WBZI-FM with a southern gospel format in the mid 70s before swapping with AM sister WGIC "G-15" which used an automated contemporary hit music package called "Stereo Rock" produced by Dallas-based TM Productions which was also used on FM stations in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. In the late 70s "Stereo Rock" on WBZI-FM (then dubbed "I-95") switched to a country music format throughout the late 1970s and 80s before becoming satellite-formatted oldies WDJK in 1988 and in the 1990s as WCLR's repeater WZLR. The WBZI calls are now at 1500 on the AM dial (the former southern gospel WGIC) which now airs classic country.

[edit] External link

• Official News/Talk WHIO site (with streaming audio)
• Query the FCC's FM station datebase for WHIO-FM
• WHIO-FM technical information from Radio-Locator website