WWTH
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WWTH & WHAK | |
City of license | WWTH: Oscoda, Michigan WHAK: Rogers City, Michigan |
---|---|
Broadcast area | WWTH: [1] WHAK: [2] (Daytime) WHAK: [3] (Nighttime) |
Branding | Thunder Country |
Frequency | WWTH: 100.7 MHz WHAK: 960 kHz |
Format | Country |
Power | WWTH: 20,500 watts WHAK: 5,000 watts (Daytime) WHAK: 136 watts (Nighttime) |
Class | WWTH: C3 WHAK: D |
Callsign meaning | WHAK: Harvey A. Klann (original owner) |
Former callsigns | WWTH: WCLS (11/13/89-4/4/05) WHAK: none |
Affiliations | Jones Radio Networks "CD Country" |
Owner | Edwards Communications |
WWTH (100.7 FM) and WHAK (960 AM), Thunder Country, are a pair of radio stations broadcasting a country music format to northeastern lower Michigan. Additionally, the group has a translator, W231BF, (94.1 FM, Alpena, Michigan). The stations' on-air imaging does not mention the AM frequency at all and names the Alpena frequency first - "Thunder Country 94.1 and 100.7."
"Thunder Country" broadcasts the "CD Country" (known on-air as "Today's New Hit Country") satellite feed from Jones Radio Networks. It competes with WATZ-FM in Alpena and WKJC in Tawas City for the country-music audience on Michigan's "Sunrise Side."
WWTH 100.7 FM Oscoda was originally WCLS "Sunny 100-dot-7," airing a satellite-fed adult contemporary format from Jones Radio. For a time, WCLS simulcast its programming on 93.9 FM WCLX in Mio, which is now WAVC. In 1998, the station was sold from Spectrum Communications to Ives Broadcasting, which also owned WHSB 107.7 FM in Alpena at the time, and became "Kix 100.7," a satellite-fed country station. After only about a year, "Kix" reverted back to the "Sunny" satellite AC format.
The second incarnation of "Sunny 100-dot-7" continued until 2004, when the station went silent; it briefly returned to the air simulcasting 99.9 WHAK-FM and then 107.7 WHSB before going silent again. In December 2004, Edwards Communications acquired WCLS along with WHSB and WHAK-AM/FM, and in April 2005, the "Thunder Country" format debuted on 100.7 FM (which sported the new calls WWTH) and 960 AM WHAK. Originally the station was chiefly locally automated with some local announcers, but the station has since gone with the "CD Country" satellite format from Jones Radio.
WWTH's translator in Alpena, 94.1 W231BF, was granted its construction permit in June 2004.
AM 960 WHAK was formerly a standalone full service adult contemporary/MOR station serving Rogers City and Presque Isle County. By 1999, the station was airing a mostly automated gold-based country format, still as a standalone. WHAK went off the air in November 2000 and returned almost a year later with talk programming, mainly from the Michigan Talk Radio Network, dubbing itself "Your Information Source in the North." This continued until the station became a simulcast of the new "Thunder Country" in April 2005.
The WHAK calls, which continue on both AM 960 and WHAK-FM 99.9 (an oldies station known as "The Wave"), stand for the station's original owner, Harvey A. Klann.