We'll, better late than never! I forgot to tell you, it was 10 years ago this past Sunday, 92.9 signed on the air and the call letters have given was WRKW and it is licensed to the city of Saugerties and it is serving Kingston and in the Hudson Valley. The first station that kicked off the format is 92.9 WRKW when it was a classic rock station at the time known as "Quality Rock". The first morning show on that station is the syndicated "Bob & Tom Show". That station lasted until 2002.
WRKW was owned at the time by Strauss Media, but when Cheap Channel took over its frequency, WRKW flipped to an active rock format back in 2002. With a 24-hour loop of Eminem's "Without Me" played over and over again, the station was relaunched as "92.9 Rock". The aircheck is in the Format Change Archive.
http://www.formatchange.com/929-wrkw-becomes-929-rock/that station lasted until 2004 when 92.9 flipped again to oldies and the call letters was changed to WBPM after when it was used to be on 94.3 back 2003 where the call letters was changed to WKXP and flipped to country, and then came "Cool 92.9" when it was a station playing "Good Times and Great Oldies" from the 50's, 60's and 70's with the exception of Rick McCaffery's "Solid Gold Jukebox" and his morning show along with such talent as Tony Flash, Rick Knight, Vince McNally and Jeff Samantic. That station lasted until 2007 when Pamal finally took over, it became "Classic Hits 92.9" playing nothing but rock & pop hits of the 60's, 70's and 80's, just like CBS-FM. By late 2007, they add the "Music Blimp" to the mix and "Backtrax USA" playing nothing but 80's songs. These two shows are cancelled as well as the "Music Blimp" has been canceled back in August, and Randy Turner (aka Randy Turnip) was the host of the show and he is still a program director for the station. By the next two years, WBPM is taking a different direction, playing nothing but the rock hits and adding a bunch of 90's songs as well as some alternative rock and album cuts that doesn't seem to fit the format at all, just like when CBS-FM did with "Jack" back on June 3rd 2005. This station "Classic Hits 92.9" isn't "Classic Hits" anymore, it's going to be something else. Why did they do that? The station is going to hurt WPDH, and WPDH is a better classic rock station than WBPM. I guess that this station should be called a classic rock station than WRKW used to sound a lot like 10 years ago. Maybe there is solution there. I got an idea, maybe we should call it "Classic Rock 92.9" instead of "Classic Hits", and play a lot of rock hits and see if they can do well than WPDH. WBPM is a WPDH copycat.
Well anyways, congratulations to 92.9 for 10 wonderful years since it first signed on the air back in 1999 as WRKW. Hopefully it will do that for the next 10 years. Congratulations!
