WATV Birmingham rebrands

[passtheword]

Flipping through the AM dial the last few days, I thought WATV sounded different, so I gave it a listen a short while ago. WATV has dropped the "900 Gold" branding and is now known as "V-900", airing what appears to be an urban AC format.

WATV needs an FM translator to be competitive, IMO. There is a new FM translator window for AM stations beginning sometime next month, but I doubt there is anywhere remaining on the dial where an available translator could be moved here and placed. Maybe WATV could possibly lease one of the local existing FM translators or do an outright buy of one?

 

[tomservo]

Thanks for passing that along. Looks like there's not a new website or anything, but from what I can tell searching Facebook the format just launched on June 1st.

I'm surprised the station has done as well as it has without a translator, but I fear the upcoming window will be too little, too late for little WATV. With the dial already pretty full and even the "partial metro coverage" translators all filled out, what's left? And now we have the deal with full power stations starting to crack down on interference to their fringes, it really makes a translator at this point risky business IMHO.

The only other longstanding urban AC on AM that I know of was WRNE in Pensacola, but even they picked up a translator a few years ago and never looked back.