WWCO (1240

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

"Viva Radio") is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

radio station licensed to

Waterbury, Connecticut Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Waterbury had a population of 114,403 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 Census. The city is southwest of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury i ...

, and owned by David Webster's Trignition Media LLC. WWCO is a

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

of its

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

New Britain New Britain () is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi Island, Umboi the Dampie ...

WRYM WRYM (840 AM; "Viva Radio") is a commercial radio station licensed to New Britain, Connecticut, and serving the Hartford metropolitan area. The station is owned by licensee Trignition Media, LLC. It simulcasts a Spanish-language contemporar ...

(840 AM); the stations' programming is also heard on WCUM (1450 AM) in

Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut and the fifth-most populous city in New England, with a population of 148,654 in 2020. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Is ...

. WWCO, WRYM, and WCUM all air a Spanish contemporary hit

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

, including

reggaeton Reggaeton (, ) is a modern style of popular music, popular and electronic music that originated in Panamanian reggaetón, Panama during the late 1980s, and which rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s through a plethora of Puert ...

and

tropical music Tropical music () is a term in the Latin music industry that refers to music genres deriving from or influenced by the Spanish-speaking areas of the Caribbean. It includes the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean ...

. WWCO transmits with 1,000 watts non-directional. 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 on Thomaston Avenue in Waterbury, near the

Naugatuck River The Naugatuck River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Its waters carve out the Naugatuck River Valley in the w ...

. Programming is also heard on 200-watt

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater ( two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tr ...

W292FI on 106.3

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

in Waterbury.Radio-Locator.com/W292FI
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History

Top 40 hits

WWCO

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

the air in 1946. It was originally powered at 250 watts. It was a

network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

of the

Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Golden Age of Radio, ...

with studios in the Mattatuck Historical Society Building at 119 West Main Street. As network programming moved from radio to television in the 1950s, WWCO had a format that was mostly

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...

. By the 1960s, WWCO was the first station in Waterbury to play

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

records and had a

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 ...

format. On-air personalities during this era included Bob "Records" Crager, Les Davis, Joe Mulhall (later known as Ken Griffin in Hartford and Los Angeles), Bob Rouge and "Wildman Steve" Gallon. Davis and WWCO were featured in an article in the April 25, 1955, edition of ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'' magazine. During the 1960s and the 1970s, WWCO was owned by TV entertainer

Merv Griffin Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. (July 6, 1925 – August 12, 2007) was an American television show host and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer, later appearing in film and on Broadway theatre, Broadway. From 1962 to 1986, G ...

and operated as "1240 Super Music C-O". In 1967, WWCO added an FM station, WWCO-FM 104.1 (now

WMRQ-FM WMRQ-FM (104.1 MHz) is an alternative rock radio station licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut, and serving Greater Hartford and New Haven. WMRQ-FM is owned by Full Power Radio and has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 14,000 watts. Its tra ...

). On-air personalities during this era included Tom Collins, later known as Joe Cipriano, the voice of the

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

network,

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

Adult contemporary and oldies

The station evolved from Top 40 to 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 (called "All-Star Music WWCO") at about the same time as WKCI (KC-101) switched from

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 ...

adult Top 40 The Adult Pop Airplay (formerly known as Adult Pop Songs and Adult Top 40) chart is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and ranks "the most popular adult top 40 as based on radio airplay detections measured by Nielsen Broadcast Data Syste ...

as "KC-101". WKCI's switch to the new format may have hastened WWCO's departure from Top 40. Some WWCO personalities left to take jobs at KC-101. In 1984, WWCO was sold to Westport resident Sam Brownstein and abandoned the "All-Star" format. It switched to 1950s and 1960s

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

under the direction of program director Mike Dowling.

Urban nights

The station found success with a night–time

urban contemporary Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contemporary r ...

format called "Nightflight" which it used from 1984 to 1989. Ricky "J" was one of the DJs. Later financial issues caused WWCO to terminate some of its personalities and to carry Unistar's "Niche 29" adult

album rock Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM broadcasting, FM radio format created in the United States in the late 1960s that focuses on the full repertoire of Rock music, rock albums and is currently associated ...

(AOR) format. WWCO was sold to Winthrop Broadcasting, whose relatives owned Waterbury's

WQQW WQQW may refer to: * 570 WWRC WWRC (570 AM) – branded ''AM 570 The Answer'' – is a commercial conservative talk radio station licensed to serve Bethesda, Maryland. Owned by the Salem Media Group, the station services the Washington metr ...

(1590 AM; now silent). WWCO relocated from its longtime location on the Straits Turnpike in Middlebury to a new studio in Waterbury. By 1990, WWCO again returned to its old Top 40 format, again as "1240 Super Music 'C-O". Steve Skipp returned for a short tenure as program director, after which Wally Mann succeeded him and continued in that position as the station switched back to an

format. General manager Tom Coffey and former

WWYZ WWYZ (92.5 FM broadcasting, FM) is a commercial radio station city of license, licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut, and serving the Waterbury, Hartford and New Haven areas. It is owned by iHeartMedia, and airs a country music radio format. WWYZ's ...

salesman Rob Johnson formed Mattatuck Communications and purchased the station. The studios moved to a new location. While most AM stations had already abandoned contemporary music, WWCO, and its on-air talent, continued into the early 1990s.

Buckley Broadcasting and Connoisseur Media

WWCO was then sold to Connecticut-based

Buckley Broadcasting Buckley Broadcasting (or Buckley Radio) was an American broadcasting company that previously held radio stations in the states of New York, Rhode Island, California and Connecticut. History Buckley Broadcasting Radio was founded in 1954 as Buck ...

, the parent of WDRC in

Hartford Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

. WWCO moved to WDRC's studios in Bloomfield and began broadcasting the same programming as WDRC. WDRC's

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...

format was known as "The Talk of Connecticut". It also included AM stations in Meriden and Torrington. On March 5, 2014, Buckley Broadcasting announced that it would sell its Connecticut radio stations, including WWCO, to

Connoisseur Media Connoisseur Media LLC is an American media company. It is based in Westport, Connecticut and led by Jeff Warshaw. As of May 2024, Connoisseur operates 13 radio stations and digital assets in four U.S. markets: Frederick, MD, Nassau-Suffolk, NY, Ne ...

. The sale was consummated on July 7, at a price of $7,922,035.

Trignition Media

WWCO was not included in the 2018 sale of WDRC and the other "Talk of Connecticut" stations to Red Wolf Broadcasting, which was completed on March 29, 2018. Instead, the station was sold to Trignition Media, owner of

, for $260,000. In February 2018, WWCO left the "Talk of Connecticut" network and began simulcasting WRYM's "Viva" tropical format. Trignition Media's purchase of the station was completed on February 22, 2019. Both stations acquired translators so their programming could be heard on the FM band.

FM translator

References

External links

* {{Spanish Radio Stations in Connecticut 1946 establishments in Connecticut Contemporary hit radio stations in the United States Mass media in New Haven County, Connecticut Radio stations established in 1946 WCO Reggaeton radio stations WCO Tropical music radio stations Waterbury, Connecticut