WWOD (93.9
FM) is an
adult album alternative
Adult album alternative (also triple-A, AAA, or adult alternative) is a radio format. See pages 9 and 10Mills, Joshua. "A New Radio Music Format: Rock for Prosperous Adults" New York Times, Feb 28 1994, p. 2. ProQuest. Web. Accessed September 4, 2 ...
broadcasting
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission 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 radi ...
. Licensed to
Woodstock, Vermont, United States, the station serves the
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
-
Rutland
Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire.
Its greatest l ...
-
White River Junction area. Established in 1989 as WMXR, the station is owned by Great Eastern Radio, LLC.
History
93.9 FM was started on April 18, 1989 as WMXR by Rob and Shirley Wolf.
In its early years, the station broadcast an
oldies
Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as wel ...
format branded "Magic 94",
which was expanded to WCFR-FM (93.5 FM, now
WEEY) in 1998 after the Wolfs' acquisition of that station.
WMXR also operated a
translator
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 ''transla ...
in White River Junction, W232AP (94.3 FM);
the three frequencies were billed as the Valley's "Superstation". The station subsequently evolved into one of the country's first
classic hits
Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 198 ...
station (programmed by
KFRC's Chuck "Boom Boom" Canon) with all-digital studios and first-in-the nation internet streaming in 1995 via
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
. In April 2000, new owners Conn River Broadcasting switched the stations' format to
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...
as "Bob Country"; though it used the branding and "Turn your knob to Bob" slogan formerly used by
WBOB-FM in
Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is commonly known as the Twin Citi ...
, the name was believed to be a reference to Bob Frisch, then-owner of competing country station
WXXK
WXXK (100.5 FM broadcasting, FM; "Kixx 100.5") is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. Licensed to Lebanon, New Hampshire, United States, the station serves the Lebanon-Rutland (city), Vermont, Rutland-White River Junction, Vermont ...
(100.5 FM).
Clear Channel Communications
iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...
bought WMXR and WCFR in 2001
and merged "Bob Country" with its existing country station in the market, WXXK, branded "Kixx".
After several months of simulcasting with WXXK, WMXR switched to a simulcast of WVRR's (101.7 FM, now
WKKN at 101.9)
classic rock
Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prim ...
format that October.
WMXR shifted to
modern rock in late March 2002, though WVRR did not follow suit until early April.
Two years later, the stations (branded ''Rock 93.9 & 101.7'') tweaked their format to mainstream rock with modest success. Clear Channel sold its stations in the
Lebanon, New Hampshire market to Great Eastern Radio in January 2007,
who later that year switched WMXR to a
news/talk
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. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...
format as "93.9 The Pulse", modeled on sister station
WTPL in
Hillsborough, New Hampshire.
This format was moved to and consolidated with a similar format on sister station
WTSL (1400 AM) under the "Pulse" branding in May 2008, at which point WMXR adopted a
classic hits
Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 198 ...
format as "Maxx 93.9".
The station subsequently returned to classic rock, retaining the "Maxx" branding.
WMXR returned to a classic hits format on November 19, 2012, branded as "Kool 93.9 & 96.3"; the branding came in advance of adding a simulcast with
WFYX (96.3 FM) in
Walpole, New Hampshire, which Great Eastern Radio was in the process of acquiring from
Nassau Broadcasting Partners. On November 30, WMXR changed its call letters to WWOD, swapping calls with then-silent
104.3 FM, which has since been moved to the Burlington, Vermont radio market.
On July 7, 2016, Dartmouth College announced that WWOD and WFYX would be the new carriers of
Big Green men's and
women's basketball broadcasts as part of the Big Green Sports Network / Learfield Sports.
On November 1, 2017 WWOD changed their format to adult album alternative, branded as "93.9 The River".
[Great Eastern Shuffles in Hanover/Lebanon, NH](_blank)
Radioinsight - November 7, 2017 "The River" had previously broadcast on W294AB (106.7 FM) and the second
HD Radio
HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...
subchannel of
WHDQ (106.1 FM),
where the format launched on March 14, 2014;
the "Kool FM" programming, which by then had shifted to an oldies format provided by
Scott Shannon's
True Oldies Channel, concurrently moved to WHDQ-HD2 and W294AB and continues to be simulcast on WFYX.
References
External links
*
{{Lebanon-Hanover-White River Junction Radio
WOD
Adult album alternative radio stations in the United States
Radio stations established in 1989
1989 establishments in Vermont