WNNH

WNNH
City of license Henniker, New Hampshire
Broadcast area Central New Hampshire
Branding 99.1 Frank FM
Slogan Concord's Classic Hits Station
Frequency 99.1 MHz
First air date October 1989
Format Classic hits
ERP 2,800 watts
HAAT 146 meters
Class A
Facility ID 11664
Transmitter coordinates 43°12′50″N 71°41′17″W / 43.214°N 71.688°WCoordinates: 43°12′50″N 71°41′17″W / 43.214°N 71.688°W
Callsign meaning W Ninety-Nine Henniker (city of license)
Owner Binnie Media
(WBIN Media Co., Inc.)
Sister stations WBIN-TV, WEMJ, WFNQ, WJYY, WLNH-FM, WNHW, WYCN-CD
Webcast Listen Live
Website www.991frankfm.com

WNNH (99.1 FM; "Frank FM") is an American radio station owned by Binnie Media and licensed to Henniker, New Hampshire. Established in 1989, the station currently airs a classic hits format.

History

WNNH went on the air in October 1989 from the Pats Peak Ski Area in Henniker, with studios on South Street in Concord. The station's original owner was Clark Smidt, who programmed several Boston FM stations in the 1970s, including WEEI-FM (103.3 FM; now WODS) and WBZ-FM (106.7 FM; now WMJX). WNNH's original format was oldies; in the early days, the station also marketed itself to the Manchester area, even though it was a rimshot signal into Manchester itself, and practically inaudible south of the city. At the outset, WNNH had a very slick sound for a small market station, complete with PAMS jingles. The station had a very diverse playlist — deeper than most oldies stations.

In 1994, Smidt tried to purchase WJYY (105.5 FM) and its then-satellite station, WRCI (107.7 FM; now WTPL), from Empire Broadcasting Partners, with the idea of putting WNNH on 105.5 to reinforce its signal in Concord. Empire Broadcasting owned a group of radio stations in Upstate New York and Northern New England (including WGY in Schenectady, New York), but had overextended themselves and went bankrupt. The bankruptcy court ruled that Empire Radio Partners could not be reorganized and ordered the stations sold at auction; another company, RadioWorks, was chosen by the court as the winner of the auction.

Logo as 99 and 104.9 Frank FM, used from December 2007 until November 4, 2009; the current logo is similar.

Smidt sold WNNH to Tele-Media in 1999;[1] Tele-Media, in turn, sold WNNH, WLKZ, and WHOB (now WFNQ) to Nassau Broadcasting Partners in 2004.[2] However, even though WLKZ, which Tele-Media had acquired in 2000,[3] also broadcast an oldies format (albeit serving the nearby Lakes Region), the two stations continued to be programmed and branded separately until 2007, when Nassau consolidated the two stations into a simulcast. That December, the stations shifted to Nassau's Frank FM classic hits format as a result of an unsuccessful attempt to convert WWHK and WWHQ from classic rock to sports radio programming from WEEI.[4][5]

On April 27, 2009 it was announced that WNNH and WWHQ would be spun off into a divestiture trust and sold as part of a debt-for-equity restructuring of Nassau Broadcasting in which Goldman Sachs became 85% owner of the company. The new ownership structure ended Nassau's grandfathered status with respect to how many stations in the Concord-Lakes Region market it could own. A sale of the two stations to Great Eastern Radio was announced on September 22, 2009.[6] In the interim, Nassau discontinued 99 and 104.9 Frank FM on November 4, and switched WNNH to a simulcast of WJYY for several weeks before converting it to a loop of promotions for other Nassau stations in the Concord-Lakes Region market.[7] The station went silent on March 1, 2010 due to power failure[8] and returned to the air in March 2011 as a simulcast of the Maine-based WBACH network of classical music stations.

WNNH, along with 16 other Nassau stations in northern New England, was purchased at bankruptcy auction by WBIN Media Company, a company controlled by Bill Binnie, on May 22, 2012. Binnie already owns WBIN-TV in Derry and WYCN-LP in Nashua.[9][10] The deal was completed on November 30, 2012;[11] a few weeks earlier, on November 9, WNNH dropped the simulcast of WBACH and returned to the classic hits format and Frank FM branding dropped three years earlier.

References

  1. ↑ Fybush, Scott (August 27, 1999). "Maine Station Owner Dies in Plane Crash". North East RadioWatch. Retrieved November 6, 2009.
  2. ↑ Fybush, Scott (January 19, 2004). "Anchor in Florida Lands 'BZ in Headlines". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved November 5, 2009.
  3. ↑ Fybush, Scott (January 28, 2000). "Welcome Back WMEX, and We Take On LPFM". North East RadioWatch. Retrieved November 4, 2009.
  4. ↑ "Nassau Broadcasting Brings A Championship To New Hampshire" (Press release). Nassau Broadcasting Partners. October 26, 2007.
  5. ↑ Fybush, Scott (January 7, 2008). "Entercom/Nassau WEEI Deal is Dead". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved November 5, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Great Eastern Radio To Purchase Two Nassau New England Radio Stations" (Press release). Nassau Broadcasting Partners. October 26, 2007. Retrieved November 6, 2009.
  7. ↑ Fybush, Scott (November 23, 2009). "WJAR's Art Lake Dies". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved November 23, 2009.
  8. ↑ "Notification of Suspension of Operations / Request for Silent STA". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. March 4, 2010. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
  9. ↑ "Carlisle Capital Corp. Wins Bidding For Rest Of Nassau Stations". All Access. May 22, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  10. ↑ "WBIN Media acquires 17 N.E. radio stations". New Hampshire Union Leader. May 23, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  11. ↑ Kitch, Michael (December 1, 2012). "Binnie closes on purchase of WLNH". Laconia Daily Sun. Retrieved December 1, 2012.

External links