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Name: WYPV
Age: 2
Occupation: teabagger talk station
Last Seen: Petoskey, MI
Bee-otched For: getting cut in half
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It looks like Tea Party talk is not working in northern Michigan.
WYPV 94.5, licensed in Mackinaw City at the tip of the mitt (and that's their old logo, BTW) is divesting their 93.9 signal in Mio, which serves Gaylord, Grayling, Houghton Lake and the I-75 corridor. The station is currently off the air as the new owners are getting new studio space.
The new owners and new format for WAVC haven't been announced. In the past, 93.9 has carried AC, alternative (twice as The River and The Zone), smooth jazz, country and classic rock. The station has never been a huge revenue grabber and has fallen silent several times in the 20 years it's been on.
Throughout most of its history, it was owned by either Del Reynolds and his successor, Northern Star Broadcasting. Reynolds purchased the station in 1997, which used to be "93.9 The River", an adult-leaning alternative station (the call sign, WAVC kinda spells "wave", get it?). He flipped it to smooth jazz with WJZJ 95.5 Traverse City and WLJZ 94.5 Mackinaw City as "Coast FM". However, in 1998, he sold the stations to NSB, which flipped them all to alternative as The Zone. Over the years, NSB used 93.9 as a repeater for their stations, depending on the time of day.
When Reynolds re-acquired his stations from Northern Star recently, he was forced to sell off some stations to meet FCC rules and regs. So, he traded 94.5 and 93.9 with 106.3 Onaway, which was the original WYPV. Reynolds got 106.3 and flipped it to soft AC while 94.5 and 93.9 became the new WYPV, carrying a far-right-winged Tea Party talk format.
Shows on WYPV include Alex Jones, Mark Levin and local hosts Brian Sommerfeld (who I think is one of the station's owners) and Trucker Randy with Greg Marshall.
I listened to WYPV when I was up north last Summer and I didn't hear a lot of local advertising. Most of the local spots seemed to be from barter from vitamin companies and a Mexican restaurant in Petoskey. Sometimes, I wondered why in the hell people in northern Michigan would ever support a station aimed towards the anti-government pricks who know nothing about American history... Oh, wait, there's parts of the Straits area where only 15% of the people graduated college, like Alanson! DERH!
Folks, I hope the fucknuts at WYPV are learning their lesson. People don't want right-winged bullshit on the FM. I hope the new owners of 93.9 put something on that people in that region will like. Sadly, I think it'll be country (again) especially since that region of the state now hardly has one since 100.3 flipped from country to rock earlier this year.
But in the world of radio, sometimes, if wishes were trees, they would be falling.
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