3 years ago...WPST and WTHK swapped frequencies...Happy Valentine's Day

[nd2023]

It's Valentine's Day, and that's the three year anniversary of WPST moving to 94.5 and WTHK moving to 97.5
So many of us wondered why Nassau was doing a pointless flip like that, at the time. But now we know why.
And since the flip, PST has been playing less hip hop and more rock (and finally lost my preset last December)
I'll forever link Valentine's Day to this frequency swap.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

[fybush]

So many of us wondered why Nassau was doing a pointless flip like that, at the time. But now we know why.

With all due respect...anyone who was reading NorthEast Radio Watch back then knew most of the "why." Here's what I wrote way back on January 17, 2005:

NERW notes that Nassau recently won FCC approval to move the 97.5 allocation from Trenton to Burlington, from which the facility will effectively become a Philadelphia-market signal.

The 94.5 half of the move is pretty obvious in that context: WPST is a dominant presence in the Trenton market (and a huge cash cow for Nassau), so moving it to a comparable facility (both 97.5 and 94.5 are class B signals) that will remain focused on Trenton will keep 'PST going for listeners there. But we strongly suspect that many more changes are in the works for 97.5, especially in light of the fact that Nassau has no other properties in the core Philadelphia market, and that it's a company that prefers to compete in suburban and small-city markets. (Not to mention that the cash infusion from an eventual sale of an upgraded Philadelphia-market 97.5 signal would more than pay for all the buying Nassau's been doing in New England and more recently in Maryland.)

http://www.fybush.com/NERW/2005/050117/nerw.html

True, we didn't know then that the WJJZ calls and format would come available, or that Greater Media would end up as the buyer of 97.5, but still, it wasn't that hard to see what was coming down the pike.

 

[cawasinnj]

It was also widely discussed on various radio forums.

 

[eyg2181]

i remember that day...i was actually happy about it (i had no idea what the real reason was obviously). i though they wanted the hawk to have a stronger signal... and now i realize it would have been better to have a crappy signal in the west direction than have no signal at all.