WGH-FM
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| WGH-FM | |
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| City of license | Newport News, Virginia |
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| Broadcast area | Norfolk/Virginia Beach |
| Branding | "97-3 The Eagle" |
| Frequency | 97.3 (MHz) |
| Format | Country |
| ERP | 74,000 watts |
| Class | B |
| Callsign meaning | World's Greatest Harbor |
| Owner | Max Media Radio |
| Website | 97-3 The Eagle Website |
WGH is known on air as 97.3 The Eagle, airing a country music format. The call letters stand for "World's Greatest Harbor".
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] 1940s-1970s
The station came on the air in 1947 on the 96.5 frequency. It moved to 97.3 a short time later. During its early years it broadcast a mixture of classical music and sports, before switching to all classical in the 1960s. The stations were owned by the local Daily Press newspaper for many years. While sister station WGH-AM became a wildly popular and dominant Top 40 station in Norfolk during the 60s and 70s, WGH-FM stayed classical, despite pressures to adopt it's sister station's more popular format.
[edit] 1980s-1989
This all ended in 1983, when both WGH AM & FM were sold to Grandcor ,who made massive changes at the stations. The paper had been trying to sell the station for quite some time. The hold up was that the paper was attaching all sorts of conditions to the sale, including retaining the classical format on WGH-FM , and the retention of several long time WGH Employees. Eventually , not seeing a buyer agreeable to all those conditions , the paper decided to to drop all the sales conditions and sell the stations outright with no restrictions.After Grandcor closed on the stations, the stations, the call letters on both stations were changed to WNSY (The dumping of the famous three letter calls were viewed as a mistake by many local media watchers, which led to some joking that the new calls stood for "We're Not Sure Yet") The long running classical format was jettisoned and replaced with a Soft Adult Contemporary format as "Sunny 97".Grancor also recieved some bad press for the unceromonius dumping of longtime and well liked WGH-AM Morning Man George Crawford, who was forced into retirement after being demoted from his longtime show morning to evenings.(Crawford passed away a few years later ) The loss of the classical format did cause some controversy which resulted in some local press coverage. In 1984 the station switched to CHR, and for short time was "Y97" which caused legal problems with crosstown WLTY, which at the time were calling themselves "Y96" . In 1985, the stations were purchased by Sussquahanna Broadcasting and the calls on the FM were changed to WRSR as "97 Star". Later that same year, finding a loophole in the FCC regulations involving three letter call signs, the legendary WGH call letters were restored to both stations, but the FM continued as "97 Star". Both MJ Kelli, later a popular shock jock in Florida, and Paul "Cubby" Bryant, now co-host of the nationally syndicated "Wake Up With Whoopie" show, which he hosts with Whoopie Goldberg, both got their starts at WGH-FM in the 1980s. After Kelli defected to crosstown competitor Z104 (WNVZ), his replacement, DB Cooper ( a former Z104 night jock ) ,insulted Kelli on air at WGH-FM, allegedly under coaxing from management. Kelli responded by suing the station for 3 million dollars. A few years later a judge awarded Kelli 370,000 dollars in damages. A week after the trail ended, General Manager Sanford Goldberg resigned from the station. In the late 80s, 97 Star's ratings began to slip due to stiff competition from crosstown CHR competitor WNVZ "Z104". In 1989 the stations were sold to Minority owned Paco-John Broadcasting, but the sale never went through.
[edit] 1990-Present
In 1990, due to difficulty in obtaining financing, the sale Paco-John was called off and new management was brought in to "revitalize" the station. On Labor Day Weekend 1990 the station went into an All Elvis format for a few days followed by a format flip to Country as "Eagle 97". This caused some listener confusion as crosstown oldies station WZCL 105.3 was "stunting" as a country station but later changed to Adult Top 40. In the 90s and the first part of the 2000s, the stations went through several owners including Heritage, Sinclair, Entercom, Barnstable, and finally locally based Max Media. In November of 2003, Eagle 97 lost its major competitor when Heritage Country WCMS-FM (by then co-owned with WGH) dropped its country format after 40 years and switched to Active Rock. At the same time, crosstown Sinclair Telecable attempted to compete with WGH with their own country format as "Kick-FM" first at 93.7, then later at 106.1. Kick-FM scored low ratings and Sinclair-Telecable later dumped the format in February 2005. Since then, WGH-FM has been the sole country FM station in Norfolk.
[edit] External links
| FM radio stations in the Hampton Roads (Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Newport News) market (Arbitron #41) | |
|---|---|
| By frequency: |
88.1 | 88.3 | 88.5/97.9/103.7/103.9 | 88.7 | 89.1 | 89.5 | 89.9 | 90.3 | 90.7 | 90.9 | 91.1 | 91.5 | 91.7/97.7/97.7/99.3 | 92.1 | 92.3 | 92.9 | 93.7 | 94.1 | 94.9 | 95.7 | 96.1 | 96.7 | 97.3 | 98.7 | 99.1 | 99.7 | 100.1 | 100.5 | 100.9 | 100.9 | 101.3 | 101.7 | 102.1 | 102.5 | 102.5/102.1 | 102.9 | 103.7 | 104.1 | 104.5 | 104.9 | 105.3 | 105.7 | 106.1 | 106.9 | 107.7 | 107.9 |
| By callsign: |
W261CN | WAFX | WAZP | WBKU/W249BH/W249BM/W257BV | WBQK | WCDG | WCWM | WCXL | WERX | WFMI | WFMZ | WFOS | WGH-FM | WGPS | WHOV | WHRO | WHRV | WJCD | WJLZ/W250AE/W279AD/W280CX | WJRX/W271AK | WKJX | WKUS | WLQM | WNOR | WNRJ | WNSB | WOWI | WPTE | WPYA | WROX | WRPC | WRSF | WRVS | WTYD | WVBW | WVKL | WWDE | WWIP | WXEZ | WXGM | WXMM | WXTG | WYCS | WYFI | WYOU |
| Other: |
See also: Hampton Roads (FM) (AM) Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford-Pulaski | Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach (FM) (AM) | Richmond (FM) (AM) | Roanoke (FM) (AM) | Fredericksburg | Winchester | Charlottesville | Harrisonburg |
