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WGTK, Earth FM sold to EMF

Logos and PAD are working on 94.5 now, nothing left from Salem. RDS also. Song/artist are showing for HD1 and HD2 and HD3 is showing Truth Network now. WGTK-HD4 has been turned off. Sound quality is improved also.

88.3 WLXK is still K-LOVE. I’m guessing it’s sort of in an awkward position. They could put Air1 on it but it would have some overlap with 103.3 signal wise. Same with K-LOVE on 94.5 especially.
 
The WGTK Facebook page still has that conservative drivel being posted. Why? Even when they were on the air, they'd be lucky to get one like on each post. :rolleyes:

The Earth FM Facebook page shows "Temporarily Closed" and has had nothing posted since October 30.
 
DavidEduardo said:
They just want a signal covering as many people in the country and its territories as possible.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't all or most stations think that way? To a big extent Earth FM kind of did as they put the listeners and advertisers first, not really ratings as much.

Anyway the point I was making is that usually in most areas with K-Love or Air1, its usually the K-Love signal (not Air1) that occupies a biggest signal in most cases, while Air1 is on the smaller stick (WPLJ vs WARW, WKVP vs WYPA, WGTK vs WRTH/WLTE)...

Yet Las Vegas has Air1 on one of the biggest signals while K-Love is on a few weak/rim shot signals there.
 
KyleAndMelissa22 said:
Anyway the point I was making is that usually in most areas with K-Love or Air1, its usually the K-Love signal (not Air1) that occupies a biggest signal in most cases, while Air1 is on the smaller stick (WPLJ vs WARW, WKVP vs WYPA, WGTK vs WRTH/WLTE)...
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Like most operators, EMF wants to make as much money as it can with the properties it has. Just because it doesn't make its money the same way commercial operators make it and doesn't operate as a for-profit entity doesn't mean it doesn't care about the cash that comes in. Contemporary Christian music will generally attract more listeners (and probably more affluent listeners) than contemporary worship music.

KyleAndMelissa22 said:
Yet Las Vegas has Air1 on one of the biggest signals while K-Love is on a few weak/rim shot signals there.
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Las Vegas has an established CCM station that does extremely well in KSOS. EMF may well believe filling a niche that KSOS doesn't will be more lucrative than competing directly against it. Keep in mind, also, that KAER has a bigger signal than KVKL, but its transmitter is actually farther from downtown and the Strip than KVKL's is. In other words, EMF might pursue a different strategy if it had a station at the market's main transmitter farm (can't remember what it's called in Vegas).
 
Also, with EMF depending on donations from individual listeners, it’s a completely different structure than an FM selling ads based off of ratings where it does matter where a signal covers. From my understanding, Air1/worship music is more popular with those under 40 than the traditional K-LOVE fare.

I’ve sampled both K-LOVE and Air1 since they signed on here. It’s a very well produced product. K-LOVE does radio better than a lot of commercial radio operators do. Contests, theme weekends, call in shows, etc. IMO it makes WLFJ sound too preachy and Air1 makes His Radio Praise on 103.9 sound very stodgy and boring. 103.9 does have a great sounding signal though, HD and analog sound quality is absolutely on point. It’s very dynamic but not overboard.
 
I came to discover Contemporary Christian music at the time Amy Grant and Michael W Smith had hits on mainstream CHR in the early 90s. I would occasionally be in the HIs Radio signal range due to visits to see family at that time and it was kind of boring to me and they still did news at the top of the hour. I was in my 20s in the 90s and enjoyed the Christian version of what mainstream AC and CHR would play. Im not understanding why young people now prefer the church worship music and not the pop rock hip sound they listen to in mainstream music. I remember loving the Sound of Light that His Radio 89.3 aired for years on Saturday night. Now His just simlucasts their hits hip hot format His Radio Z Saturday nights. That is my favorite CCM station at 50 years old. His Radio Z sounds like many CHR stations. In my home Area His Radio's sister network the Joy FM airs a hits and hip hop known as LF radio which is my second fave CCM station. His Radio still appeals to me and K Love is a consistant station available in many areas I stay and visit. the way that 106.7 Gainesville-Atlanta and 94.5 Greenville Spartanburg keeps the station on I 85 to almost CHarlotte is awesome
 
The difference between the stations like HIS Radio, WMIT, and The Joy FM and K-LOVE/Air1 is the EMF stations (and WAY-FM) are literally identical to a commercial style FM AC or hot AC that happens to be playing Christian music. As I mentioned they do contests for stuff like free thanksgiving meals, gift cards for groceries, etc and do stuff like theme weekends. Jocks and jock breaks follow a very traditional FM station and they are interactive with the listeners.

The HIS Radio/WMIT type stations are similar to an FM pop station in a lot of ways, but they often have teaching programs/segments throughout the day, can get in to longer/deeper jock breaks, are often get further in to specific religious topics.
 
101tm said:
Also, with EMF depending on donations from individual listeners, it’s a completely different structure than an FM selling ads based off of ratings where it does matter where a signal covers. From my understanding, Air1/worship music is more popular with those under 40 than the traditional K-LOVE fare.
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That seems ironic. I've actually heard contemporary services were also more popular with people over 40 than under.

I would think under 40 listeners would want a more contemporary sound, more like CHR than AC.
 
RadioRonnie285 said:
I came to discover Contemporary Christian music at the time Amy Grant and Michael W Smith had hits on mainstream CHR
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Can't stand them but Amy did "El Shaddai" which is good in my opinion.
RadioRonnie285 said:
In my home Area His Radio's sister network the Joy FM airs a hits and hip hop known as LF radio which is my second fave CCM station.
Click to expand...
Joy FM is a Southern gospel network where I live. It's not surprising that name would be used but that could get confusing.
 
The RDS issue on WLTE that has been ongoing since the move to Powdersville seems to have been fixed. Station name/song/artist now constantly scrolling properly like 103.3.

Also, the HD signal for WLTE has been shut off.
 
vchimpanzee said:
That seems ironic. I've actually heard contemporary services were also more popular with people over 40 than under.

I would think under 40 listeners would want a more contemporary sound, more like CHR than AC.
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I actually prefer Southern Gospel such as Bill Gaither, Happy Goodmans, Jimmy Swaggart, Dottie Rambo, Nancy Harmon, and yes Tammy Faye Bakker. Give me that gospel format please.

And on a related note, Jimmy Swaggart recently acquired WHKY channel 14 television in Hickory, NC which serves areas from Charlotte down to Spartanburg. New local flagship for his SBN network. But the WHKY 1290/102.3 radio station remains with the Long family, I believe. But I wonder if Swaggart could be interested in acquiring WGGS channel 16 in Greenville, and would they be willing to sell? SBN is currently carried on WGGS 16.3.
 
The Life FM has a great variety of Southern Gospel programming, I prefer that over most other Christian stations around here (as well as Joy FM in NC/VA).

Hard to hear them east of Spartanburg
(on 105.9 Greenville or 90.5 Gray Court)
though it is on 93.3 HD-2.

I recently checked out their Hendersonville translator (98.3 W252EJ / for WWQT), Wow what an extremely directional setup that barely sends any signal into SC (only a few miles away near / past Landrum) not far from there the Spartanburg 98.3 station (WSPG translator - W252DQ) starts to interfere and take over the channel around Campobello, all within line of sight of the Hendersonville 98.3 translator on Tryon Peak (on the same tower as 93.3 WTPT).

Edit: that station (W252EJ) lists a whopping 102 watts, most of which is sent west straight into Hendersonville, but FCC lists their directional pattern setup, (Azimuth 90° to 180°) at only 0.03 (3%). That means W252EJ is only using about 3 watts (of that 102w) to the south and east (towards Landrum / Spartanburg) from their site on Tryon Peak. (See attached file of coverage map)
 

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It’s not my cup of tea, and I don’t have any idea of either’s financials, but if LifeFM wanted to get in to Greenville in a better way I wonder if they’ve ever approached the owners of WTBI 91.5. Does anyone listen to that station? Most of the programming sounds like it’s 40 years old at least and they play a lot of southern gospel. Some of the teaching is quite… radical, very very fundamentalist that would make BBN and VCY America seem quite liberal. It’s a decent C2 signal off US-123 west of downtown Greenville. They give off the attitude that they’d probably never sell to anything (WTBI considered WMUU “liberal”). I believe their Spanish ministry owns the old 1540 AM in Pickens now.

WHQB 90.5 is licensed to Gray Court but is actually down on Lake Greenwood and barely covers Gray Court to meet FCC requirements actually. The flagship for Life FM is 103.1 in Anderson, the old WRIX-FM
 
tylerSC said:
I actually prefer Southern Gospel such as Bill Gaither, Happy Goodmans, Jimmy Swaggart, Dottie Rambo, Nancy Harmon, and yes Tammy Faye Bakker. Give me that gospel format please.
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I actually like some of the songs, but mostly the men singing harmony. I prefer organ music and choirs. WYFG 91.1 has that. I've even heard that station around Asheville.
 
vchimpanzee said:
Now I find that hard to believe. Musically, though, WMUU was willing to play songs with synthesizer, which compared to what we were doing in church sounded contemporary.
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Sorry, I meant from a theological standpoint. The folks running 91.5 have a very fundamentalist view in their theology with a lot of “do’s and don’ts” which even BJU had moved away from in its latter years of operating WMUU to an extent. Most of the stuff on 91.5 is “screaming”, “old time religion”/“camp meeting revival” style preaching. I’ll never forget hearing a church service on there where a pastor called out women wearing pants, contemporary Christian music, not using a certain Bible version, calling the television the “hell-e-vision”, and hearing screams of “preach harder!” And the whole thing was overmodulating and the pastor almost sounded like he was crying he was screaming so hard. WMUU was very … “high brow” and calm in comparison even though from a theological standpoint there were way more similarities than differences. I don’t remember hearing feverish screaming.

Hearing stuff like that is why I don’t object to K-LOVE or Air 1.
 
101tm said:
Sorry, I meant from a theological standpoint. The folks running 91.5 have a very fundamentalist view in their theology with a lot of “do’s and don’ts” which even BJU had moved away from in its latter years of operating WMUU to an extent. Most of the stuff on 91.5 is “screaming”, “old time religion”/“camp meeting revival” style preaching. I’ll never forget hearing a church service on there where a pastor called out women wearing pants, contemporary Christian music, not using a certain Bible version, calling the television the “hell-e-vision”, and hearing screams of “preach harder!” And the whole thing was overmodulating and the pastor almost sounded like he was crying he was screaming so hard. WMUU was very … “high brow” and calm in comparison even though from a theological standpoint there were way more similarities than differences. I don’t remember hearing feverish screaming.

Hearing stuff like that is why I don’t object to K-LOVE or Air 1.
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Yeah, I believe I've heard the preaching on WMUU and like everything else there it was dignified. But as a Bob Jones station I would think they'd object to women wearing pants, not using the right Bible.

Plenty of stations have those yelling preachers.
 
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