WLOA

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WLOA
City of license	Farrell, Pennsylvania
Broadcast area	Youngstown, Ohio
First air date	October 3, 1954 (as WFAR)
Frequency	1470 (kHz)
Format	Sports
Power	1,000 watts daytime 500 watts nighttime
Class	B
Callsign meaning	Our Lady Of the Angels (former Catholic format)
Owner	Beacon Broadcasting

WGRP
City of license	Greenville, Pennsylvania
Broadcast area	Meadville-Franklin, Pennsylvania
Frequency	940 (kHz)
Format	Sports
Power	1,000 watts daytime 2 watts nighttime
Class	D
Callsign meaning	GReenville, Pennsylvania
Owner	Beacon Broadcasting

WLOA is an AM radio station in Farrell, Pennsylvania broadcasting at 1470 kHz. WLOA's programming is currently simulcasted on with WGRP, which is also an AM radio station in Greenville at 940 kHz. WGRP technically broadcasts on a full-time basis with only 2 watts in the nighttime hours, in order to protect Canadian clear-channel CINW.

WLOA and WGRP currently have a sports talk radio format, and are the Mercer County outlets for Pittsburgh Pirates baseball. Previously, the two stations carried an oldies format that originated from sister station WANR.

Both stations are owned, along with WANR in Warren, Ohio and WEXC-FM in Greenville, Pennsylvania, by Beacon Broadcasting. Beacon is headed by Warren steel supply magnate Harold Glunt.

[edit] History

The station first signed on the air as WFAR on October 3, 1954. The station was founded by Sanford A. Schafitz, a native of the Youngstown area. Schafitz also started up WWIZ in Lorain, Ohio and was involved in the lauching of WXTV-TV in Youngstown a few years earlier.

After becoming WMGZ by 1986, the station has undergone a number of callsign changes—to WOJY in 1989; to WRQQ on March 18, 1991; to WICT on March 29, 1996; to WPAO on March 3, 1997; and to WLOA on February 18, 2003. Formats ranged from top 40 to oldies to easy listening music, with a number of religious formats along the way.

WPAO was sold by D&E Broadcasting to Holy Family Communications, which changed the call sign to WLOA on February 18, 2003 (to complement Holy Family Communications' other Catholic radio stations) and which took over operations on March 4, 2003, making it the 60th Catholic radio station on the air in the United States.

WLOA was purchased by Glunt's Beacon Broadcasting on July 7, 2005, and the station became part of a three-station oldies format trimulcast (along with WGRP) that originated from Warren's WANR under the "Family Frendly Oldies" banner - but would break away to air assorted sports play-by-play. This lasted until December of 2006, of which the current sports format was installed for WLOA and WGRP.

[edit] External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WLOA
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WGRP