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WPGB (104.7 Hertz) is a commercial FM broadcasting radio station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It broadcasts a country music radio format and is owned by IHeartMedia Its radio studio and offices are located on Abele Rd. in Bridgeville next to I-79, along with its sister stations. WPGB carries The Bobby Bones Show on weekday mornings, syndicated from Nashville.
WPGB has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 14,500 . The transmitter is off Rising Main Avenue at Lanark Street, on a tower shared with WPXI and other FM stations in the Pittsburgh media market. WPGB broadcasts using HD Radio technology. Its HD2 digital subchannel carries the sports radio programming of co-owned WBGG (970 AM).
Gateway owner Nelson L. Goldberg was interested in acquiring an improved FM signal with Pittsburgh market penetration. That opportunity presented itself in 1967, when a channel opened up for 104.7. To acquire the new signal, Goldberg had to spin off WPGH, which was purchased by Milton Hammond and moved to Millvale, where it was rechristened as big-band formatted WNUF-FM. That station is known today as WBZZ.
The Stephen King book "Christine" (but not the movie of the same name) was set in a fictional suburb of Pittsburgh and mentioned both 104.7 WYDD and their legendary Block Party Weekend segments multiple time, the "WYDD's Block Party Weekend" was an hour of playing of multiple songs by the same artist back-to-back featuring the WYDD's MetroMix and then later renamed as the WYDD's PowerMix.
"Energy" was led by former WABC program director; consultant Rick Sklar, and WYDD program director Tony Florentino. Among the talent hired for "Energy" was New York City native Mike Frazer, who remained in Pittsburgh and has been a part of WWSW since 1990. The format was successful in terms of ratings, but quickly became too costly to maintain.
One of the chief competitors between Top 40 station WBZZ (then known as B94, now as KDKA-FM) and AOR-formatted WDVE, the station maintained a fairly consistent lineup until its sale to Salem Communications in 1989, ending more than two decades of local ownership.
WYDD had its main studio located along with WMNY in New Kensington since its beginnings, but maintained a separate sales office at Gateway Towers in Pittsburgh for many years.
The call letters were switched to WEZE, shared by Salem's co-owned AM station in Boston, and the easy-listening format was adopted on January 15, 1990, with the intent to switch from that format to Christian talk once the ministry contracts could be obtained. American Radio History American Radio History In April 1991, the studios were moved to Green Tree borough, located in Pittsburgh's South Hills, to Seven Parkway Center, Suite 625, one floor below WLTJ. The tower site was then moved later that same year from Murray Hill Road in East Deer Township (which was also half of WKPA's two-tower directional antenna array) to 750 Ivory Avenue, just off I-279 in Pittsburgh, the home of WPGH-TV. The much higher tower location allowed a power reduction to 13 Watt, but a decades-long coverage problem for the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh was finally alleviated.
After Entercom purchased the station, and after stunting briefly with a classic rock format as "US 104.7", on February 2, 1993, 104.7 changed to country music, branded as 104.7 The Rebel, WXRB. American Radio HistoryArchived at Ghostarchive and the
At 2 p.m. on May 24, 1999, the station flipped to urban oldies, branded as 104.7 The Beat. American Radio History "Pittsburgh's Jammin' Oldies" was widely popular, though management skewed the format towards more current material to attract a broad audience; this didn't help, as the station's ratings began to sink. The station changed its slogan to "Pittsburgh's Jammin' Hits" in a half-hearted attempt to attract new listeners, and modified its format towards Urban AC in 2003 to compete against WAMO.
During its ten years as a talk station, for most of that time The War Room with Quinn and Rose, a show hosted by longtime Pittsburgh disc jockey Jim Quinn, was flagshipped at WPGB. Quinn was dismissed in a contract dispute in November 2013.
When WPGB was a talk station, its programming was fairly standard for a Clear Channel station of its type, a regional morning show (itself simulcast on several stations throughout northern Appalachia and New England), followed by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, with Dave Ramsey and Andy Dean in the evening hours. From 6-8 p.m., Greg Henson hosted a sports talk show featuring interviews other local sports talk show hosts conducted earlier in the day on sister stations. Weekday newscasts were supplied by Cleveland station WTAM and Fox News Radio.
In addition, Glen Meakem hosted a program from 8-9:30am on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
On August 7, 2014, Clear Channel sold off the entire intellectual property unit of WPGB's talk format to Frank Iorio, who was taking over operations of WJAS. WJAS dropped their longtime adult standards format at noon that day and began a three-hour simulcast of WPGB-FM (the duration of The Rush Limbaugh Show). Hannity and Beck were the only shows that still on WJAS today. Both stations replaced all local commercial breaks with sweepers prompting listeners to move to WJAS, interspersed with a heart monitor sound effect. At 3 p.m., WPGB abruptly cut away from the top-of-the-hour newscast (fed from the Total Traffic Network facilities in Cleveland) and, after playing a few song snippets poking fun at the format change - notably "No More Words" by Berlin - debuted a country music format as Big 104.7. The first song on "Big" was "This Is How We Roll" by Florida Georgia Line. The new station launched with 10,000 songs in a row, and compete with WDSY-FM and WOGI for Steel City country listeners.
The station’s current weekday on-air lineup consists of a mix of local and syndicated programming. After MidNite with Granger Smith and the aforementioned Bobby Bones Show (both based out of co-owned WSIX-FM in Nashville) are heard in overnights and mornings, respectively. Angie Ward of co-owned WUBL Atlanta Voice-tracking the midday shift, and local jocks Kasper and Travis round out the schedule, hosting afternoons and evenings, respectively.
The station also lost its partnership with the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 2011 season to KDKA-FM.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: The station was to complement WDSY and WEEP, who targeted an older audience, while WXRB targeted a younger audience with its "Young Country" direction, which was very popular during that time due to a recent spike in country music listenership.
As WNRQ
On August 29, 1995, at 4 p.m., after stunting for a few days with snippets of songs from random genres, as well as redirecting listeners to WDSY-FM, 104.7 flipped to alternative rock, branded as The Revolution 104.7, WNRQ, after modern rock had proven to be the mainstream following its success in other markets. The first song on "The Revolution" was "Send Me on My Way" by Pittsburgh band Rusted Root. WNRQ was Pittsburgh's second FM alternative station, after WBZZ's run from 1985 to 1988. The format would only last just shy of one year, due to the station being sold to Secret Communications, then-owner of WXDX-FM, and who wanted to eliminate the overlap between the two stations. American Radio History
As WJJJ
On June 1, 1996, after playing "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine, 104.7 flipped again, this time to smooth jazz, branding as Smooth Jazz 104.7 (with the WJJJ call letters instituted on June 28, 1996). The WJJJ call sign was an obvious nod to WJJZ (106.1 FM) in Philadelphia.
As WPGB
On January 2, 2004, the station flipped to a Talk format, branded as NewsTalk 104.7. The current WPGB call letters took effect that day.
Today
In July 2014, rumors surfaced that 104.7 would soon flip back to country, possibly named 104.7 The Bull to match similar stations in Boston, WUBL, St. Louis, WBUL-FM, KUPL, and KILT-FM with the format and branding, following a decline of ratings from the previous November (when Quinn and Rose were still with the station), from a 4.1 rating to a 2.5 in the June 2014 Nielsen ratings.
WPGB-HD2
On April 25, 2006, Clear Channel announced that WPGB's HD Radio subchannel will carry a smooth jazz music format, which was a previous station format under the call letters WJJJ. WPGB-HD2 currently airs a simulcast of sports-formatted WBGG.
Sports
On September 12, 2006, Clear Channel and the Pittsburgh Pirates announced a five-year agreement in which WPGB would become the "new radio broadcast and strategic promotional partner of the Pirates beginning with the 2007 (Major League Baseball) season." WPGB was the Pirates' flagship radio station, having replaced KDKA, which broadcast the first Major League Baseball game on radio (between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies) in 1921, and served as the Pirates' flagship station for 52 seasons (1955–2006). On July 6, 2010, the station was announced as the new home for the Duquesne Dukes men's basketball team.
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