Interesting tidbit. WWVA filed an application to move to Stow, OH about 20 years ago, but the plan was abandoned due to local opposition in West Virginia.
I think that's the story iHeart (Clear Channel at the time) told publicly to try and save face. When Clear Channel purchased WWVA (along with a handful of other stations in the Wheeling, WV market), it was a heritage 50,000 watt station that had aired a country format for decades and was closely associated with Jamboree USA which, until it folded in the early 2000s, was the second longest live, regularly scheduled country music broadcast in the USA behind the Grand Ole Opry. In 1997, WWVA's format was switched from country to news/talk. In early 2004, Clear Channel filed the paperwork to try and move WWVA to Stow, Ohio, near Akron in an effort to make WWVA (possibly with a call letter change) a Cleveland, OH market station. They abandoned that idea and withdrew the application in August of that same year. Clear Channel claimed it was because of local opposition in the town of Wheeling, WV. In reality, Wheeling had been experiencing steady population decline for decades, was located in the middle of the "rust belt" and most all the blue collar jobs, especially in the coal and steel industries which once employed a sizable portion of the population were nearly gone. That in mind, if Clear Channel (now iHeart) thought it was truly worth moving the station from the Wheeling, WV market to Cleveland, OH, they would have done so, and what little opposition they may have received from the town of Wheeling would not have stopped them.
It's much more likely that that, upon closer review and serious study, Clear Channel found it simply wasn't as financially attractive as originally thought, so they dropped the idea. As a feel good measure, they yelled "You win!" to the residents of the town of Wheeling.