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WNTY 990-AM turns 50

MarcB

MarcB

The other day was WNTY 990-AM's 50th Anniversary. I'm not sure of the exact sign on date. There wasn't much coverage about the sign on of the station in the Southington Newspaper. (Maybe because back then Newspapers and radio stations were considered competitors). It was somewhere around September 23rd, 1969. Back in the day many people who went on to bigger stations got their start at small community stations such as WNTY 990-AM in Southington.

Owned by Full Power Radio, these days WTNY along with a 210 watt translator at 96.1 FM is running an Oldies/Classic Hits format featuring music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s as "Kool 990/96.1". Despite doing some odd things - such as playing the short version of "American Pie" by Don McLean and the non-live version of "I want you to Want Me" by Cheap Trick, they do an okay job filling the Oldies format hole in the market, when they're not running Dead Air.

In addition to local news during morning drive anchored by Teresa Barry and Shawn Murphy from sister station Soft Rock 106.5 in the New London Market with reporters "Wendy London" - Amy Grey on sister station Radio 104.1 WMRQ and Alyssa Engdahl from sister station Jammin 107-7, local programming on WNTY also includes Italian Programming on Sunday Mornings - a staple on WNTY since Columbus Day 1969, a Lutheran Church Mass Sunday Afternoons - on WNTY since 1993, and as of this year live play by play of Cheshire Rams High School Football, which replaced Southington Blue Knights Football.

Syndicated programming includes Wolfman Jack (yuck) weekdays at Noon and Saturdays 7-Midnight, Greatest Hits USA Saturday Mornings/Sunday Evenings, That Thing with Rich Appel Saturday afternoons, and American Top 40: The 70s with Casey Kasem Saturday Mornings/Sunday Nights.


What are everyone's memories of WNTY?
 
I noticed they were doing Cheshire football when I was scanning the dial last Friday night. Why the change from Southington? More advertisers in Cheshire?
 
Marc, nice writeup about the station. I worked there with Tom Chute (now WATR - before we worked @WWCO together) in the early '80's under owner George Stevens. Nice guy. All 45's & carts those days - no CD's or computers! I remember Tom & I in a blizzard signing the station on in the AM. What happened to the Polka Party?
 
MarcB said:
What are everyone's memories of WNTY?
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My memories were of WBZY 990 in Torrington... which I heard on the car radio when in Lakeville when I interviewed at a school in there in about 1962.

I always wondered why the station in Torrington failed and then reappeared in Southington with less power.

And the other local in Torrington, WTOR moved to 610. I managed to drop by and visit WTOR on that trip while my mom waited in the car!
 
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amfmradio1 said:
What happened to the Polka Party?
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Patti Ann Jakubiak host of "Patti Ann's Polka Happiness Show" on WNTY passed away in October 2011 right around the same time of that big blizzard. Her crew continued that show on 990-AM as "The Just Friends Polka Show" until the Spring of 2016. I have no idea why the show ended. At the time I never asked anyone at Full Power Radio.
 
DavidEduardo said:
My memories were of WBZY 990 in Torrington... which I heard on the car radio when in Lakeville when I interviewed at a school in there in about 1962.

I always wondered why the station in Torrington failed and then reappeared in Southington with less power.
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I was going to ask why a station with decent power on the AM band signed on as late as 1969. I guess that's my answer.
 
amfmradio1 said:
There was a cat @the station named "WINTY".
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This could probably be a thread by itself.

I wonder how many people in radio had pets named after stations?

My first was Kiddo, named after KIDO in Boise, whose chief engineer became a friend after they did a DX test for the National Radio Club.

Second dog was Wibbage, named after Storer's WIBG; I was a tiny shareholder in Storer.

Third was Keeno, named after KENO in Las Vegas, where I was program consultant.

Then, in PR at WQII, named "11-Q" we had a kangaroo in our ads named Kanga-Q and the slogan "jump to 11-Q". We got a wallaby from our friends at 3KZ in Melbourne, and it was also named Kanga-Q.
 
The freak early snowstorm of October 29, 2011 was NOT a blizzard. February 8/9, 2013 was. All the 2011 storm did was set the current Connecticut record for power outages. It broke the mark set only two months earlier by Hurricane Irene.
 
KML-224 said:
The freak early snowstorm of October 29, 2011 was NOT a blizzard. February 8/9, 2013 was. All the 2011 storm did was set the current Connecticut record for power outages. It broke the mark set only two months earlier by Hurricane Irene.
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The Oct. 29-30 storm dropped only 10 inches or so of very wet snow on central Connecticut. There was no high wind associated with it, which means it never came close to being a blizzard. The problem was that it had been a warm, wet summer and fall before the storm and there were still many trees whose leaves hadn't even turned into their fall colors yet, let alone fallen from the branches. Those branches gave way under the weight of the snow and came down across power lines.
 
The blizzard I was referring to was in the early 80's when I worked there. I also now remember the CE's name was Tom Cawett. Nice guy.
 
CTListener said:
I noticed they were doing Cheshire football when I was scanning the dial last Friday night. Why the change from Southington? More advertisers in Cheshire?
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Don't think the amount of advertisers would change much between the two towns. Only reason I can think of is that they had been doing Southington for four years and just wanted to give another town in their immediate listening area some coverage as a change. As I said in the other thread, Cheshire did pretty well in 2019 and also has a strong tradition in football but generally it is Southington that has been more successful in recent years. Of course they always play each other on Thanksgiving but are in different conferences, and that's the other thing that puzzles me about the switch- many of Cheshire's opponents are not in Kool Radio's coverage area whereas most of Southington's opponents are. That matters as well. Cheshire plays teams from as far away as Madison (which not even 990 can reach) during the regular season almost every year. Most of Cheshire's conference opponents are located south of Cheshire.

Because Covid will likely cancel HS football this year, we probably will not be hearing any broadcasts on KR in 2020 and that time slot will just have normal programming. It's not guaranteed yet that it will be cancelled but because football involves more close contact than the other fall sports, it's very likely.
 
MarcB said:
I know Coach Drust the football coach at Cheshire High. I worked for him. - His family owns the ShopRite stores in Southington and Wallingford. And even though I haven't worked there in years he still says "Hi" to me by name whenever he sees me in the store. I never thought to ask him how he got his games on Kool Radio.
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The coach most likely had no role in that process.
 
Obviously I don't know about the situation with 990, but I bet the coach was a part of the process. If he runs the groceries as Marc mentions, it's possible he dropped his sponsorship and made it infeasible to carry Southington.

My station sales staff always makes a point to chat with the coaches, athletics director, booster club, etc. when we sell HS sports. It's the most effective way to make contacts, and find out about non-traditional advertisers who might be willing to put a few bucks behind an HS football broadcast. We had a father of one of the kids last season hawking firewood by the cord on our football games -- probably aren't going to get that business without some kind of personal prospecting.
 
One of the problems with selling HS football broadcasts to potential advertisers might be that the breaks between touchdowns/scoring plays and kickoffs are much shorter than in college/pro football. Which means most of the commercials are going to be aired either pregame or during halftime. You can usually only fit one ad in after a touchdown, and sometimes it is hard to predict exactly how long the break will be. Even during the breaks between the first/second and third/fourth quarters, you can only fit in maybe two short ads at most.

And since the games are mostly on Friday nights, it is not how far 990 (which has a limited nighttime coverage range) can reach that matters, but rather how far 96.1 can reach. I definitely do think you would get listeners from other towns who may be fans of the opponent to tune in, as long as they are in 96.1's coverage range. 96.1 can reach North Haven just fine but the fans of teams from coastal towns that Cheshire plays wouldn't be able to listen.
 
FTRlistenerAM said:
And since the games are mostly on Friday nights, it is not how far 990 (which has a limited nighttime coverage range) can reach that matters, but rather how far 96.1 can reach. I definitely do think you would get listeners from other towns who may be fans of the opponent to tune in, as long as they are in 96.1's coverage range. 96.1 can reach North Haven just fine but the fans of teams from coastal towns that Cheshire plays wouldn't be able to listen.
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Streaming, my friend, streaming.

Also, is there still a Friday night football exemption from the nighttime power rules for small-town stations covering local high schools? I know the FCC traditionally winked at AMs in Arkansas that would stay on at full power to 9:30 p.m. or so back in the late '70s. Is it still OK to bend the rules in the service of football?
 
CTListener said:
Streaming, my friend, streaming.

Also, is there still a Friday night football exemption from the nighttime power rules for small-town stations covering local high schools? I know the FCC traditionally winked at AMs in Arkansas that would stay on at full power to 9:30 p.m. or so back in the late '70s. Is it still OK to bend the rules in the service of football?
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Urban Legend! There was never an exemption, never a variance, never a blind eye. The simple fact is that most of that behaviour was done in rural America far from an FCC office and who, in those towns where football was a local high-point, would think to report any violations?
 
amfmradio1 said:
George Stevens' wife, Norma, was the secretary/receptionist. Nice lady. There was a cat @the station named "WINTY".
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When the Stevens moved to CT from upstate NY they rented a house in Bristol from the place my mom worked for and I used to cut their lawn. I was 15 then. George told me when I was a bit older to let him know and he'd get me on the air. When I was 17 and a senior in Farmington High he had his PD Dick Bartholomew slip me in for Sunday Mornings running God Squad. Dick allowed me to come in an hour earlier to sign the station on since on sundays they signed on later and allowed me to do an hour+ show. I had forgotten Norma's name thanks for the reminder... but I'll never forget the kindness of George nor Winty! That was my first "on-air" gig in 1981.

While reminiscing... one afternoon Dick phoned me and said I _had_ to go down and hear this new 45 that he received in the mail. At the time, Endless Love was dominating all charts it could dominate for the summer. When I got down there he played for me that 45 he mentioned which was "Start Me Up". Dick said it was trash and would be a major bomb... I totally disagreed and said it'd dethrone Endless Love... which it did. Where did time go??
 
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