WHUD

WHUD
City Peekskill, New York
Broadcast area Hudson Valley, New York City area
Branding 100.7 WHUD
Slogan "Westchester & The Valley's Music Station" (Primary)
"One Great Song After Another" (Secondary)
Frequency 100.7 MHz
First air date October 24, 1958 (as WLNA-FM)
Format Adult Contemporary
ERP 50,000 watts
HAAT 152 meters
Class B
Facility ID 54854
Transmitter coordinates 41°20′17.69″N 73°53′38.0898″W / 41.3382472°N 73.893913833°W / 41.3382472; -73.893913833
Callsign meaning W HUDson
Former callsigns WLNA-FM (1958–1971)
Owner Pamal Broadcasting
(6 Johnson Road Licenses, Inc.)
Sister stations WBNR, WBPM, WGHQ, WLNA, WSPK, WXPK
Webcast Listen Live
Website www.whud.com

WHUD (100.7 WHUD) is an Adult Contemporary radio station licensed to Peekskill, New York. The station is owned by Pamal Broadcasting and broadcasts on 100.7 MHz at 50 kW ERP from a tower site in Philipstown, New York, and has studios at 715 Rt.52 in Beacon, New York.[1]

History

In early 1957, Highland Broadcasting, owner of WLNA, began petitioning the Federal Communications Commission[2] to grant a class B FM allocation to the City of Peekskill, New York. In the petition, Highland noted that there were no class B FM allotments between Poughkeepsie and New York City, that the far flung northern suburbs were rather heavily populated, not all of the area was covered by FM signals, and it was culturally unique from New York City.

Initially, it was thought that 106.7 MHz would fit in with the stations already licensed to New York City. However, by March 1957 that frequency had already been applied for by the Riverside Church in New York City. After some frequency shuffling between the cities of New Haven, Connecticut and Waterbury, Connecticut, 100.7 MHz was allotted to Peekskill, New York on May 24, 1957.[3]

WLNA-FM signed on for the first time on October 24, 1958 as the second FM station between New York City and Albany, New York. The format was a 100% simulcast of WLNA.[4] During this time, the FM station's main source of revenue was a Muzak Subcarrier.[5]

The first major changes to the station occurred in late 1971. On October 14, 1971, the call sign was changed to WHUD.[6] In December 1971, WHUD increased its power from 20 KW to 50 KW ERP.[7] In February 1972, the simulcast with WLNA ended, WHUD began broadcasting in Stereo, and launched a Beautiful music format.

The Bonneville format consisted largely of instrumental covers of pop songs with some vocal standards. Some Adult Contemporary artists were mixed into the music rotation with one vocal track per 15 minutes under the work of Program Director (and morning personality) Joe O'Brien. Prior to his work at WHUD, O'Brien was one of the WMCA Good Guys and had been doing mornings on the New York City station since the early 60s.

During this early period, WHUD branded its format as Music From the Terrace, a term named for the location of WHUD's studios on Radio Terrace, (41°18′46.04″N 73°54′58.2552″W / 41.3127889°N 73.916182000°W / 41.3127889; -73.916182000) a public street in the town of Cortlandt, New York.

In 1982, Highland Broadcasting sold WHUD and WLNA to Radio Terrace, Inc. The format remained unchanged, however, more resources were diverted away from WLNA in favor of WHUD as AM radio began to decline.

In 1986, Joe O'Brien retired and was replaced by longtime New York City radio personality Ed Baer. Baer spent a total of 18 years broadcasting in the New York City market, also as one of the WMCA good guys then on country station WHN and later on WYNY[8] He stayed in the morning show position until he retired for the second time in 2000. Ed Baer was replaced by longtime news director Mike Bennett who got his start at Hudson Valley radio station WHVW in the early 1970s.

1986 was also the year that WHUD began to equal out the vocal/instrumental ratio to the point that by early 1990 it was an even split. However, the declining demographics and audience of the beautiful music format led WHUD to eliminate instrumental covers with little fanfare, evolving into a Soft Adult Contemporary format. Throughout the first half of the 1990s, WHUD would continue evolving to a wide play list Adult Contemporary format.

In 1997, WHUD was sold to Albany, New York based Pamal Broadcasting. The studios were moved from Radio Terrace to the newly reconstructed "Broadcast Center" on NY Route 52, in the town of Fishkill, New York.

Programming

After the ownership transfer, Pamal altered the format with a slight recurrent lean to the play list and the addition of the Delilah show in evening time slot in spite of the same program being cleared on the Poughkeepsie-based WRNQ. This geographic loophole also led to the stations sharing a jingle package for several years. Regardless, WHUD dropped Delilah in September 2006 and replaced her with a live and local evening program called Night Rhythms hosted by Catherine Michaels (the program would resurface on WLTW two months later and continues to air there although in a localized format).

Indian Point warning Siren at WHUD transmitter site

WHUD is one of the few stations in the Hudson Valley (along with co-owned WSPK) that is live 24/7. This allows the station to maintain a local programming element including breaking news, traffic and weather updates that voice tracked/automated station cannot. WHUD serves as the primary (LP-1) Emergency Alert System (EAS) station for Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and Orange Counties.[9] As such it is the first media outlet in the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant public warning system.[10] Prior to the studio move to Fishkill, New York these duties fell to WABC (AM) in New York City because WHUD's studio was located within the 10 mile Emergency Planning Zone around the Indian Point Energy Center.[11] In July 2007 Pamal spent approximately $500,000 to upgrade WHUD's transmitter site and add redundancies to its technical facility to ensure that the station could meet its public warning responsibilities.[12]

WHUD's signal reaches most of the Hudson Valley and the suburbs of New York City with a usable signal in much of the Five Boroughs (especially in the Bronx). In total, WHUD's signal reaches parts of five states.[13] The primary target market of WHUD is that of Westchester and Rockland Counties plus the Mid-Hudson Valley. In all of these areas, WHUD is at or near the top of the ratings even with more localized competition in those markets and is by far the highest rated Westchester County station in Nielsen's New York City book.

References

  1. ↑ "WHUD Facility Record". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.
  2. ↑ Federal Communications Commission Docket Number 12032, April 23, 1957
  3. ↑ Notice of Proposed Rule Making FCC 57-538, May 24, 1957
  4. ↑ "1959 Broadcasting Yearbook page 299". Broadcasting Publications, Inc.
  5. ↑ Subcarrier authorization, FCC form 318, September 12, 1959
  6. ↑ Authorization/license change telegram, from FCC to Highland Broadcasting, December 24, 1971
  7. ↑ Construction Permit WLNA-FM 100.7 MHz Peekskill, New York Federal Communications Commission File number BPH-6827, October 31, 1969
  8. ↑ "Whud.com". Pamal Broadcasting, Ltd. 2009.
  9. ↑ "New York State EAS Plan". New York State Emergency Communications Committee, December 16, 2004.
  10. ↑ "Westchester County Emergency Planning Guide". Westchester County Government.
  11. ↑ "Emergency Planning Guide, Westchester County". Entergy Corporation. External link in |work= (help)
  12. ↑ "Emergency Broadcast Upgrade". Times Herald-Record of Middletown, NY. (News Corporation) November 30, 2007.
  13. ↑ "WHUD 54 dBu coverage map". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.
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