WZAD

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WZAD
City of license	Wurtsboro, New York
Broadcast area	Catskill Mountains region, Orange County, northwest Pennsylvania
Branding	94.3/97.3 The Wolf
Slogan	"This is Hudson Valley Country"
First air date	1990
Frequency	97.3 MHz
Format	Country music (simulcast of WKXP Kingston)
Power	620 watts
ERP	6 kW
Class	A
Callsign meaning	WiZArD (former station name)
Owner	Cumulus Media
Website	www.943thewolf.com

WZAD (The Wolf) is country music radio station licenced to Wurtsboro, New York that serves the Catskill Mountains region, Orange County, New York, and Pike County, Pennsylvania. The station is owned by Cumulus Media and broadcasts on 97.3 MHz with 6 kilowatts ERP from a tower between Wurtsboro and Monticello.

WZAD's programming is a simulcast of sister station 94.3 WKXP Kingston, an arrangement that began in March 2006. Prior to this, WZAD had simulcast the programming of another sister station, 97.7 WCZX Hyde Park.

[edit] History

WZAD first signed on in 1990 as part of a wave of new FM stations which signed on in the wake of the FCC's passage of Docket 80-90 which loosened class/frequency restrictions. The station began its life as The Wizard a locally-based Oldies format that had a playlist spanning from the birth of rock until the mid-1980s. The station had local personalities during the morning and afternoon hours, but was otherwise automated outside of some syndicated programming on weekends.

The Wizard format would last until early 1996, when WZAD's original owners sold the station to the Poughkeepsie-based Crystal Radio Group. With this sale, Crystal saw an opportunity to strengthen their WCZX (Oldies 97-7), an oldies station in Poughkeepsie by upgrading their format and simulcasting the programming to cover most of the Hudson Valley. When Crystal took control of the stations, WCZX and WZAD were merged into one station, Oldies 97-7/Oldies 97-3, from Crystal's headquarters in Poughkeepsie with some of WZAD's local staff making the move. However, with the move came a historical reduction on WZAD's end given that all post-1975 music was stricken from the playlist given WCZX's heavy 1955-69 musical base. The name would be modified to Oldies 97 in early 1999 to sound less unweildy.

WZAD (and the rest of the Crystal stations) would change ownership twice in the early 2000s, first being sold to Aurora Communications in October 2000 and then to Cumulus Media when that company purchased Aurora a year later. It was the second move that led to profound changes as new management came out as being against the Oldies format which led to the push of WCZX/WZAD to change format. In February of 2002 WCZX/WZAD began a gradual evolution away from oldies. Initially they added some 80's music. By the Summer the pre 1964 oldies were nearly gone and they were known as "Oldies 97 The Hudson valley's Best Mix". By August of 2002, the station began focusing on the 70's and played music from 1964 to 1989. Labor Day weekend in 2002 saw the name change to Mix 97, which at that time was a 60's to 80's music format. Late in 2002, the station began adding 90's music as well as recent hits and would evolve into an Adult Contemporary format in 2003. They would spend 2004 evolving away from its gold base.

By 2005, the WZAD end of the simulcast was losing local listenership and advertising to locally based WVOS-FM and its adult contemporary format. At the same time, Cumulus was looking to shore up the ratings of WKXP, a poorly rated country station with coverage problems. Prior to the start of the Spring ratings in March 2006, Cumulus changed WZAD's simulcast from WCZX to WKXP in response to saving WKXP's format and to retaliate against locally-based WDNB launching a country format. The first ratings book for the two stations saw a slight improvement though both stations lag considerably behind longtime leader WRWD.

[edit] External links

• Query the FCC's FM station database for WZAD
• 94.3/97.3 The Wolf Homepage