Headline News

(That used to be a TV channel, didn’t it?)

Today’s update is a grab-bag of signals that have been in the news over the last couple of months. From the boldface-headline category, we’ve got the rather lengthy (and inexplicably hissy) final ID that aired on Rice University’s KTRU 91.7 in Houston last week, just before the FM frequency went silent in preparation for its sale to local pubcaster KUHF. KTRU’s freeform programming lives on over an HD2 channel on Pacifica’s KPFT 90.1, also mentioned in this ID.

The march of news-talk formats to FM affected my local area while I was away at NAB. Just down the road in Buffalo, Entercom killed off the AAA format on “The Lake,” rimshot WLKK 107.7, replacing it with a simulcast of WBEN 930. The Lake lives on at WLKK’s HD2, and that ID is represented here, too. We also get caught up on some lower-profile Buffalo moves: Catholic station WLOF 101.7 moved from Attica to Elma, where it puts a better signal over Buffalo, and to maintain “first local service” to Attica, Family Life Network’s WCOU 88.3 “moved” from Warsaw to Attica. We’ve got before-and-after IDs from both, as well as some recent IDs from a few other Buffalo signals that have changed format in the last couple of years.

From Chicago, we hear the very first ID from the March flip of “Jack” WJMK 104.3 to classic hits “K-Hits.”

And in New York City, the big news comes later this week, when K-Love launches its Big Apple outlet, move-in WKLV-FM (96.7, ex-WCTZ), and then on May 12, when a new midtown Manhattan translator launches on 106.3. We’ll get those IDs for you in due time; meanwhile, a somewhat less-exciting offering this week: the latest iteration of the WWRV 1330 “Radio Vision Cristiana” ID, which recently added two more relays on WWCL 1440 Lehigh Acres (here mis-ID’d as “Fort Myers”) FL and WVZN 1580 Columbia/York PA.