WJAS completes news-talk format switch

Pitt Trib Review ^ | 8/7/14 | Patrick Cloonan

[raccoonradio]

Two widely expected format flips occurred Aug. 7 on Pittsburgh radio.
WJAS (1320 AM) began picking up the former news-talk format of WPGB (104.7 FM) at noon, while at 3 p.m., WPGB flipped from news-talk to “Big 104.7” airing “Pittsburgh's New Hit Country.”

The new “Big 104.7” opened with Florida Georgia Line's “This Is How We Roll” and pledged 10,000 songs in a row without commercials to start its competition with CBS Radio's WDSY “Y-108” (107.9 FM) and Keymarket's three Froggy FM stations, WOGG (94.9 FM), WOGH (103.5 FM) and WOGF (104.3 FM).

WPGB alerted listeners to the format change on its website, while midday host Rush Limbaugh was hailing the addition of WJAS as an affiliate of his “Excellence in Broadcasting” network on his website.

Essentially, the former WPGB format is being moved from the Clear Channel-owned FM to AM 1320, which was sold by Renda Broadcasting to Frank Iorio's Radio Partners LLC. The WPGB announcement touted the move of syndicated hosts Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to WJAS. WPGB's Fox News Radio affiliation moved to WJAS as well.

The move came one day after former WJAS announcers Jack Bogut and Bill Cardille bade their listeners farewell from morning-drive and midday slots, respectively, on WJAS, which under Renda operated with a nostalgia format.

[raccoonradio]

I had mentioned this about a week ago and now it has happened, so there's the story. Clear Channel was getting weak ratings from 104.7 Pittsburgh and decided to go to country, a hot format right now esp. with younger people. As for Quinn and Rose I don't know if they'll wind up on WJAS but right now I think they're running the same Bloomdaddy guy from WV that WPGB was running--hopefully they'll consider Q and R. As expected many on the new Big 104.7 Country facebook are condemning this as a bad move. Well radio is a business and they're doing it for business reasons.

People are saying WJAS 1320 is tough to pick up...Same thing has happened elsewhere like in LA where CC put local talk on KFI 640 and moved Rush, etc. to 1150 (and to other nearby stations). I live in Boston area but visit Pitt. twice a year including in about a week so I'll see for myself as I drive around.

Approx signal range of 1320 (usually more optimistic than realistic); the antenna may be just E of highland park/zoo etc

[raccoonradio]

Actually I think the News Talk 104.7 facebook is still up and that's where the negative comments are going.

[fatnotlazy]

Clear Channel is run by idiots. Discarding Quinn & Rose and imposing this Bloomdaddy twerp on us.

I stopped listening to any radio since Quinn & Rose were dumped and won't be listening until Q&R are back.

[caww]

When did Quin and Rose get dumped? I use to listen to them out here in West. PA.

[raccoonradio]

from PBRTV.com:
>>After a three-hour simulcast of the Rush Limbaugh program between WJAS (1320) and WPGB (104.7), WPGB flipped formats to “Big Country” with current country hits. Message boards and industry experts have been predicting this change for some time and one might suspect that this may have sped up the change at WJAS which occurred at Noon today. (We hear the last song played on the old format was Frank Sinatra’s “One For My Baby” which seems appropriate.) The new country format is expected to be commercial free for “10,000 songs”. The “FM News Talk” format began in January 2004. Meanwhile, there were those who thought 104.7 would become an all sports FM station to compete with KDKA-FM (93.7) but Clear Channel’s plan is to keep their sports station on 970 AM as they work to move an FM translator at 106.3 from Connellsville to the tower at Calvary Cemetery.

[fatnotlazy]

Had to look it up. It’s been so long. November, 2013.

They’ve hinted on their website that something may be in the works to bring them back, but so far nothing.

[raccoonradio]

May be happening; some in the now are hinting it. 1320 isn’t run by Clear Channel—maybe they are running Bloomdaddy for now until Q&R could get on, though also maybe CC is forcing them to take it as a condition of getting Beck/Rush/Sean.

[fatnotlazy]

Thanks!

[prisoner6]

maybe CC is forcing them to take it as a condition of getting Beck/Rush/Sean...

Excellent point! Word on the local grapevine is the new owners have HIRED Bloomy away from CC, he will move here and continue the morning shift at least for awhile.

[raccoonradio]

thanks for info... yes it was said in places like Boston WRKO (Entercom) had to take Jerry Doyle or piss, Laura Ingraham (who was then at TalkRadioNet) if they wanted Savage.

[raccoonradio]

Way to roll out your new format. I guess they'll get to it eventually.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Government subsidized?

[Yorlik803]

Took the Iheart radio app off my kindle....and will remove 104.7 from my pre-sets.
There are two country music stations in Pittsburgh now. and it is all trash country. would have preferred to see a 80s music station.

[Buckeye McFrog]

WJAS’ pre-sunrise signal is horrible. Barely comes in at my house, and I’m less than ten miles from the transmitter.

After the Rush Morning Update they ran an ad for a Mahindra Tractor dealer in Washington, PA. Likely bought when this ran on 104.7. I’m sure that dealer was thrilled to pay for an ad which did not have a snowball’s chance in Hell of actually being HEARD down in Washington, PA.

[Buckeye McFrog]

“Trash Country”. HA! I suppose that explains the incredible mountains of garbage left outside of Heinz Field after the last few big country shows.

[raccoonradio]

Yup..and in the LA area when Rush, etc. moved from 640 to 1150 there were a bunch of areas where 1150 couldn’t come in too well, so they just added Beck & Hannity at least to a 1440 out in Riverside/San Bernadino (Rush is on the am 590 out there). Here, Clear Channel didn’t want to take sports off 970 so they got WJAS to carry their shows.

The only way someone could hear the ad, I guess, is if they listened online...
The WJAS map on radio-locator shows that allegedly the distant signal gets down to Uniontown, etc.—daytime, at least. The maps tend to be optimistic.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WJAS&service=AM&status=L&hours=D
Daytime

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WJAS&service=AM&status=L&hours=N
Nighttime
In these maps red area = extent of local signal,
purple area = extent of distant signal,
blue area = extent of fringe signal (night apparently only has 2 of these)

From experience visiting the area (and I’ll be back in about 9 days) it’s poss. some could get shows on WWVA 1170 Wheeling or WKBN 570 Youngstown or even WHLO 640 Akron

http://www.newsradio1170.com/main.html

[raccoonradio]

Heard about the country, etc. concerts there and the parking lots etc full of trash. Took Heinz Field tour a few weeks back; there had been a country concert (Luke Bryan?) just before and things seemed clean (at least by then...)

[NRA1995]

Gone Country - Alan Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlUR9XT_-Wk

[LadyBuck]

I can’t get 1320 either...and I’m in Allegheny Co.

This stinks.