WPKV (98.3 FM, "98.3 K-LOVE") is a

non-commercial A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that is not carried out in the interest of Profit (economics), profit. The opposite is Commerce, commercial, something that primarily serves profit interests and is focused on bu ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

that is licensed to serve

Duquesne, Pennsylvania Duquesne ( ) is a city along the Monongahela River in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, within the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The population was 5,254 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History The city of Duquesne wa ...

and is located in the

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

media market. The station is owned and operated by

Educational Media Foundation Educational Media Foundation (formerly EMF Broadcasting, abbreviated EMF) is an American nonprofit Christian media ministry based in Franklin, a suburb of Nashville. EMF is the parent company of K-LOVE and Air1—the world's largest contempor ...

and is an affiliate of

K-LOVE K-Love (stylized as K-LOVE) is an American Christian radio network. Owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF), a non-profit Christian ministry, it primarily broadcasts contemporary Christian music. As of June 2019, the network's progr ...

, EMF's

contemporary Christian Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

music network.

History

As WESA-FM

WPKV was originally adult top 40 WESA-FM, the sister station of WESA, and was licensed to

Charleroi, Pennsylvania Charleroi ( ) is a borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Monongahela River, 21 miles south of Pittsburgh. Charleroi was settled in 1890 and incorporated in 1891. The 2020 census recorded a population of 4,210. Red ...

; first going on the air in 1967, and under the ownership of Laubach Radio Properties. Created out of necessity to serve the Mon-Yough area because its AM sister was only licensed to operate during sunrise to sunset hours, WESA-FM offered some separate programming during the day, but at night, picked up where WESA was forced to leave off. Both stations became a full-time simulcast once new FCC regulations were passed eliminating the rule mandating that combination AM/FM license holders originate separate programming for half of the broadcast day.

As WZKT "Z98"

In 1998, WESA-FM abandoned its call letters and adult contemporary full-service format, and flipped to

top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

as WZKT (Z98), but that format would go away in January 2000, after it was sold to Keymarket Communications. Keymarket, which had owned and operated "Froggy" branded country music stations throughout Pennsylvania already for ten years, had been looking to gain a foothold in the Pittsburgh market. The opportunity presented itself for Keymarket to acquire WESA and WZKT, and both stations were sold for $1.3 million. Keymarket, in March 2002, petitioned the FCC for permission to change the station's city of license to Duquesne, allowing them to realize the intended goal of targeting Pittsburgh proper. By the end of the decade, Keymarket had acquired other signals surrounding Pittsburgh enough to target the city from a multitude of different frequencies, and could focus the station on possibly another format.

WPKV today

On August 28, 2009, Keymarket announced that it sold WOGI to

, which announced plans to bring the

Christian Contemporary music format to Pittsburgh as early as September 1, 2009. This format is on the air today and the call letters were subsequently changed to WPKV. In late 2018, WPKV added

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...

to air sister channels

Air1 Air1 is an American Christian radio network owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF), a non-profit Christian ministry. It primarily broadcasts contemporary worship music, and is a sister to the EMF's K-Love network. History On July 15, ...

and the new K-Love Classics.

Translators

WPKV programming is broadcast on the following

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

References

External links

* {{K-LOVE PKV K-Love radio stations Radio stations established in 1967 1967 establishments in Pennsylvania Educational Media Foundation radio stations PKV