WWIZ (103.9 FM) is a commercial

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 ...

West Middlesex, Pennsylvania West Middlesex is a borough along the Shenango River in southwestern Mercer County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 815 at the 2020 Census. It is part of the Hermitage micropolitan area. Geography West Middlesex is located at ...

, United States, serving the

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in Mahoning County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, 11th-most populous city in Ohio with a population of 60,068 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Mahoning ...

market with 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 Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

. The station uses the branding "Z 104" and carries the Westwood One

Hits & Favorites Adult Contemporary, billed on-air with the slogan Today's Hits and Yesterday's Favorites (or Hits & Favorites for short), is a 24-hour music format produced by Cumulus Media Networks (now Westwood One). History Starstation, as it was formerl ...

network. The studios are off Simon Road and the transmitter is on Greenfield Road. It is one of seven radio stations in the Youngstown market owned by

Cumulus Media Cumulus Media, Inc. is a broadcasting company of the United States and is the second largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States ahead of Audacy and behind iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdi ...

with studios in "The Radio Center" in Youngstown. WWIZ operates with an ERP of 6,000 watts, making it a class A station.

History

WWIZ first signed on the air in October 1972 and carried an

Active rock Active rock is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations across the United States and Canada. Active rock stations play a balance of new hard rock songs with valued classic rock favorites, normally with an emphasis on the harder edge o ...

format for a long time, branded as "Rock 104". On March 31, 2017, WWIZ dropped its active rock format and began stunting with a loop of

The Moody Blues The Moody Blues were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in May 1964. The band initially consisted of Graeme Edge (drums), Denny Laine (guitar/vocals), Mike Pinder (keyboards/vocals), Ray Thomas (multi-instrumentalist/vocals) and Clint W ...

' “

Nights in White Satin "Nights in White Satin" is a song by English rock band the Moody Blues, written by Justin Hayward. It was first featured as the segment "The Night" on the album '' Days of Future Passed''. When first released as a single in 1967, it reached nu ...

” and

The Royal Guardsmen The Royal Guardsmen are an American rock band best known for their 1966 hit singles " Snoopy vs. the Red Baron", "The Return of The Red Baron", "Snoopy For President", and the Christmas follow-up " Snoopy's Christmas". History Originally kno ...

's “ Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”, with just a legal ID between the songs. The following day at Noon, the station flipped to

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 ...

as "Z104" using

Westwood One Westwood One, Inc. is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates talk, music, and sports programming. The company takes its name from an earlier network also named Westwood One, a company founded in 1976. The co ...

's "

Good Time Oldies Good Time Oldies is a 24-hour music format offered to local radio stations across the country that was originally produced by Jones Radio Networks. After the sales of Jones Radio Networks to Dial Global in 2008, the format was absorbed into D.G.`s ...

" satellite feed. On April 17, 2025, WWIZ changed its format from oldies to Adult Contemporary (AC), still under the "Z104" branding and carrying the Westwood One

network. This left the Youngstown market without a full-time classic hits or oldies station. WWIZ had been effectively forced to change formats because of Westwood One's plan to shut down the Good Time Oldies network that month.

Christmas Music

Between 2019 and 2022, WWIZ temporarily displaced its oldies format in favor of all-Christmas music during the

holiday season The Christmas season or the festive season, also known as the holiday season or the holidays, is an annual period generally spanning from November or December to early January. Incorporating Christmas Day and New Year's Day, the various celebrat ...

and would become known as "Christmas 104". The change first occurred on October 25, 2019, when WWIZ dropped its oldies format and began carrying Christmas music. It was the first station in the country to flip to Christmas music for the holiday season and initially appeared to be a

stunt A stunt is an unusual, difficult, dramatic physical feat that may require a special skill, performed for artistic purposes usually for a public audience, as on television or in theaters or cinema. Stunts are a feature of many action films. Befo ...

. However, on January 1, 2020, WWIZ ended the Christmas music and returned to its previous oldies format, branded as "Z104". On September 25, 2020, at 12:25 p.m., WWIZ again flipped to Christmas music. It made this excessively early flip due to the stress of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. It is the earliest known flip to Christmas music for an FCC-licensed station; the earliest stations, ''including'' stunting stations, typically flip to the format in mid-October. On October 1, 2021, at 12:25 p.m., WWIZ again flipped to Christmas music, branded as "Christmas 104". This year, it was not the first station to flip, as WXMS made the flip a few hours earlier.WWIZ Makes Its Annual Early Christmas Move
Radioinsight - October 1, 2021 In 2022, WWIZ opted not to repeat the excessively early flips of the previous years, and by October 31 of that year, the station was still playing its regular format. On November 1, 2022, at 12:25 p.m., WWIZ finally flipped to its Christmas music format, becoming Christmas 104, and continued the format through

New Year's Day In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Day is the first day of the calendar year, January 1, 1 January. Most solar calendars, such as the Gregorian and Julian calendars, begin the year regularly at or near the December solstice, northern winter ...

. In 2023 and 2024, WWIZ decided not to run an all-Christmas

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

format. Starting in late November, the station mixed in a few Christmas songs into its regular oldies format and retained the "Z 104" branding, as opposed to switching to "Christmas 104".

References

External links

* * {{Cumulus Media

WIZ Wiz may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Wizard (MUD), or wiz, a developer or administrator of Multi-User Dungeon game *"Wiz" Zumwalt, the hero of a series of novels by Rick Cook * Wiz (''KonoSuba''), a character in the light novel series ''Kon ...

Radio stations established in 1983 Cumulus Media radio stations

Mainstream adult contemporary radio stations in the United States