| City of license | Columbus, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Columbus and most of central Ohio towards Lake Erie,south central,west central and northwest Ohio |
| Branding | "St. Gabriel Radio" |
| Slogan | same |
| Frequency | 820 kHz |
| First air date | June 3, 1922(as WEAO later WOSU) December 17, 2011(as WVSG) |
| Format | Christian radio (Catholic) |
| Power | 5,000 watts(day) 790 watts(night) |
| Class | B |
| Callsign meaning | We're (the) Voice (of) St. Gabriel." |
| Former callsigns | 8XL (experimental 1920-1922) WEAO (1922-1933) WOSU (1933-2011) St. Gabriel Radio timeline: WUCO(AM) Marysville (2005-2010) WFOT-FM Lexington/Mansfield (2007-present) WVKO (AM) Columbus (2007-2011) WVSG (2011-present) |
| Owner | St. Gabriel Radio Inc. |
| Sister stations | WFOT-FM 89.5 mHz Lexington/Mansfield |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | stgabrielradio.com |
WVSG (820 AM, "St. Gabriel Radio") is an American radio station which has taken the place of the now defunct WOSU (AM) 820 kHz in Columbus, Ohio which left the air on Wednesday December 14, 2011. AM 820 returned to the air as WVSG on Saturday morning December 17, 2011, and concluded its broadcasts on WVKO (1580 AM) also in Columbus on the evening of December 20.
St. Gabriel Radio airs local Catholic programming in addition to programming from EWTN Global Catholic Radio. AM 820 broadcasts with 5,000 watts daytime and 790 watts directional in the evenings and overnights from their respective transmitter sites located near Upper Arlington and Grove City.
St. Gabriel programming was previously broadcasting on WVKO (AM) 1580 kHz until the sign-on of WVSG took place. Hence, St. Gabriel programming on WVKO ceased on December 20 at 6:00 pm local time. WVKO now currently airs continuing announcements informing St. Gabriel listeners to switch to AM-820.
St. Gabriel Radio is the first fulltime Catholic radio broadcaster in central Ohio.
The transition of St. Gabriel from 1580 to 820 AM concluded on Tuesday evening December 20, 2011 at 6pm during the local airing of "The Local Spotlight Show" on WVKO (AM) 1580 kHz in Columbus and the program concluding on WVSG afterward. WOSU radio programming as a news/talk format from National Public Radio will continue on WOSU-FM 89.7 mHz while WVKO will adopt a progressive talk format on January 2, 2012 at 6 am.[1]
The final broadcast day (with its final sign-off and demise) for WOSU-AM took place on December 9, 2011 when NPR and local news programming ended on AM 820 at 5pm local time and concluded with a continuous loop of announcements by WOSU and NPR staffers reminding listeners to tune to WOSU-FM. The loop announcements continued to air until Wednesday December 14, 2011, at 9am when WOSU-AM went silent without any formal announcement or farewell.
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St. Gabriel Radio Inc. purchased WUCO 1270 kHz in Marysville from Frontier Broadcasting in 2005 making it the first fulltime Catholic station licensed in Ohio. (Though WNOP serves Catholics in the Cincinnati/tri-state area as "Sacred Heart Radio," with studios in Cincinnati it is actually licensed to Newport, Kentucky.) WUCO previously aired country music when it first signed-on in 1984. In the 1990s it later switched to Adult Contemporary. It moved its studio and office base to Columbus as it is the hub of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus, thus increasing its volunteer and listener base. In 2007,St. Gabriel Radio proposed to lease WVKO (AM) 1580 in Columbus from owner Bernard Ohio LLC with intention to later purchase the station as its signal better reaches Columbus than the directional and less powerful signal of WUCO. WVKO-AM previously aired a liberal progressive talk format. Both WUCO and WVKO aired in simulcast until WUCO was sold in January 2010 to ICS Communications which is now WQTT airing an oldies format with the studio moved back to Marysville. It was that same year when The Ohio State University announced that WOSU (AM) with a powerful five thousand watt daytime signal (790 watts evenings) covering most of Central Ohio and surrounding regions was put up for sale...which convinced St.Gabriel Radio to purchase it on September 21, 2011 instead of WVKO. Their fundraiser "Leave a Legacy" then focused on purchasing WOSU-AM. The sale and transfer of license from The Ohio State University was approved by the FCC on November 7, 2011.
St. Gabriel Radio also owns and operates WFOT-FM 89.5 mHz licensed to Lexington and serving the Mansfield area as a near-simulcast of the AM station. WFOT made its on-air debut in February 2007.
The call sign WVSG was used previously from 2002 to 2006 at the former WZQK (now K-LOVE affilliate WGCK-FM) 99.7 mHz in Coeburn, Virginia and then from 2006 to 2009 at an AM station formerly known as WEZC and currently as WIZD 1480 kHz in Neon, Kentucky. The call sign is believed to have been first used at 98.9 FM in Bethel, North Carolina, the current WNBR-FM.
The WVSG calls are also used as the initials for West Virginia Southern Gospel Radio, an online streaming webcaster based in Pecks Mill, West Virginia.
WVSG primary daytime and nighttime signal serves:
WVSG's daytime signal also reaches into portions of:
WVSG (as did predecessor WOSU) must power down after local sunset time to 790 watts at night to avoid interference to the 50,000 watt signal of WBAP (AM) a talk station in Fort Worth, Texas.
(WFOT-FM information)
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