Anybody know the reasoning behind the flip of call letters from 1340/98.7 WJYI to WJOI?. No one pays attention to call letters anymore. Why the flip?
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WJYI flips call letters with WJOI
- Thread starter Brian Bowers
- Start date
I was wondering the very same thing. I'm in the Norfolk, Virginia market and noticed that WJOI had become WJYI. I figured the owner had a religious station and felt that the WJOI calls would be better used for that format. Let us know if you find out...
The Norfolk AM's tower was demolished in 2019 with plans to immediately replace. In the process, Saga discovered damages to the ground system that have delayed the rebuild. The call swap was done simply to retain the WJOI call letters should Saga simply decide to surrender the Norfolk station's license.
Hmmm, so someone is saying that the WJOI calls are more important than the WJYI calls? Am I understanding that correctly? Seems like a big waste of time and money to put in the effort to do the flip, if just for that.
I also kind of doubt that Saga would give up an AM license that easily, because of a bad ground system.
I'd argue that WJOI are just better calls that WJYI. Not sure there's been a lot of wasted time and money that's gone into the switch. And it's not particularly breaking news: the change was made over 4 months ago.
The station in Norfolk runs America's Best Music from Westwood One around the clock. That format was Adult Standards some years ago, with prerecorded DJs most of the day. But in recent years, it is a mostly-Soft Oldies outlet with no DJs. Carpenters, Beatles, Neil Diamond, Dionne Warwick.
WJYI promotes itself more as an HD 2 subchannel on co-owned WNOR 98.7, than as an AM station on 1230 kHz. Unlike most Class C (formerly Class IV) AM stations, WJYI runs with 627 watts, not 1,000. Through most of its history, it had been 1,000 watts, so I don't know why it dropped the power. I suppose if the AM transmitter becomes too expensive to justify, Joy-FM 98.7 will exist as an HD and Internet station.
WJYI promotes itself more as an HD 2 subchannel on co-owned WNOR 98.7, than as an AM station on 1230 kHz. Unlike most Class C (formerly Class IV) AM stations, WJYI runs with 627 watts, not 1,000. Through most of its history, it had been 1,000 watts, so I don't know why it dropped the power. I suppose if the AM transmitter becomes too expensive to justify, Joy-FM 98.7 will exist as an HD and Internet station.
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