WARM-FM (103.3
FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to serve
York, Pennsylvania
York is a city in York County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. Located in South Central Pennsylvania, the city's population was 44,800 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in ...
. It is owned and operated by
Cumulus Media through licensee Radio License Holding SRC LLC and airs an
adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
format. For much of November and December, it switches to
Christmas music
Christmas music comprises a variety of Music genre, genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas and holiday season, Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of Christmas ...
.
Syndicated programming on WARM-FM includes ''
The John Tesh Radio Show'' on weeknights, both the 1980s and 1990s versions of ''
Backtrax USA'' on Saturday nights, and ''
Your Weekend with Jim Brickman'' Sunday mornings.
WARM-FM's radio studios and offices are on Vartan Way in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg ( ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,099 as of 2020, Harrisburg is the ninth-most populous city in Pennsylvania. It is the larger of the two pr ...
. The
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...
is off Brummer Lane in
Hellam Township.
History
Easy listening WSBA-FM
On September 1, 1962, the station first
signed on as WSBA-FM. It was owned by the
Susquehanna Radio Corporation, which also owned
WSBA (910
AM) and WSBA-TV (Channel 43, now
WPMT) in the York
media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television station, television and radio broadcasting, ra ...
. Susquehanna, headquartered in York, eventually owned more than 40 stations in Pennsylvania and other parts of the country.
At first, WSBA-FM
simulcast its AM counterpart. But a short time later, WSBA-FM switched to a
beautiful music format of soft instrumentals with limited talking and commercials. The station remained
easy listening
Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to the 1970s. It is related to middle of the road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit s ...
for the next two decades, competing with
WGAL-FM (101.3 FM), a station in nearby Lancaster. But by the 1980s, the easy listening format started to age. WSBA-FM added more vocals, and in the mid-1980s, switched to a
soft adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
sound.
Move to adult contemporary
In 1988, the WARM-FM
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...
was moved to the station, having previously been used by a Susquehanna-owned station in Atlanta called "Warm 99", now
WWWQ. (There is another station holding the
WARM call letters at 590 AM in
Scranton, also owned previously by Susquehanna). WARM-FM has always broadcast some type of
adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
(AC) music format from the time of its inception and was repeatedly ranked at the number one spot in the York radio market into the early 2000s, with significant listening also in the adjacent
Lancaster and
Harrisburg
Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...
radio markets.
However, following the trends of other AC stations in the country, the station "freshened up" its playlist in the mid-2000s and discarded all but a handful of pre-1980 titles, focusing more heavily on current and recent pop hits. The station began leaning slightly in a
hot AC direction, although still positioned as a mainstream AC, as it continued to play a considerable percentage of soft hits from the 1980s and 1990s.
In 2006, Susquehanna Radio's stations, including WARM-FM, were sold to
Cumulus Media, one of the biggest owners of radio stations in the US.
Switch to Wink 103
On September 8, 2011, WARM-FM officially changed its branding to "Wink 103". This was similar to co-owned
WNNK-FM (104.1 FM), often the number one station in nearby Harrisburg, which has been known as "Wink 104" for many years. As Wink 103, WARM-FM straddled the line between AC and hot AC.
It dropped the Wink identification on December 26, 2012, returning to the "Warm 103.3" branding.
Christmas music
On November 23, 2012, WARM-FM began playing all
Christmas music
Christmas music comprises a variety of Music genre, genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas and holiday season, Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of Christmas ...
. On December 26, after the Christmas season, the station returned to its adult contemporary format.
Each year it has followed the same pattern of going All-Christmas in early to mid-November and returning to its AC format on December 26, though in 2022, the station expanded the 24/7 Christmas format by four days, ending on December 30. While the FM station plays holiday tunes, the website also offers what it calls its "
Scrooge Stream" playing the usual format.
Signal note
WARM-FM is short-spaced to
WPRB (licensed to serve
Princeton, New Jersey
The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...
) as they operate on the same channel and the distance between the two stations' transmitters is only 103 miles as determined by FCC rules. The minimum distance between two Class B stations operating on the same channel according to current
FCC rules is 150 miles.
References
External links
*
*
{{Cumulus Media
1962 establishments in Pennsylvania
Cumulus Media radio stations
Mainstream adult contemporary radio stations in the United States
Radio stations established in 1962
ARM-FM
York, Pennsylvania