WGR-FM (107.7 FM) is a radio station located in Wethersfield, New York, owned by Audacy, Inc. It operates from studios at Audacy's Buffalo offices in Amherst, New York, with its transmitter located near Warsaw, 35 miles southeast of Buffalo.
The station has had a long history of frequent format changes, with formats changing every four to seven years. Its owners have typically used the signal as a pass-through for other national format trends in its portfolio. The station currently airs a simulcast of its sports radio sister station WGR with the idea of extending WGR's listening area into Batavia and western Rochester, New York.
History Earliest days: Rural Radio Network
The FM station on 107.7 at Wethersfield originally started broadcasting June 6, 1948, as WFNF, a member of the Rural Radio Network based in Ithaca.
The network changed ownership three times in the 1960s, and was most notable between 1969 and 1981 for being upstate New York's arm of Pat Robertson's original Christian Broadcasting Network as WBIV.
WUWU In November 1981, Robertson dismantled the CBN radio division and sold WBIV for roughly $350,000 to a coalition led by Ron Chmiel, a dentist based in Williamsville; John Bunkfeldt, who owned radio stations in Utica; Bob Allen, a local program director; and Allen's parents and aunt. Chmiel held a majority stake of roughly 60%, while Bunkfeldt and the Allen family each held 20%. Allen, then age 32, had either left or been fired from six radio stations in the previous 12 years, and by buying a minority stake in the station, Allen believed he was untouchable, no matter what he did.
WUWU began as an effort to revive progressive/underground rock radio, by then a nearly extinct format, with personnel who had previously been involved with the city's previous progressive station from 12 years prior, WPHD, and with short-lived revivals of the format that had appeared on WBUF and WZIR between then and 1981; it even recycled WBUF's mascot from that era, a green parrot. WUWU was the first incarnation of the station explicitly marketed as a rimshot to the Buffalo market, establishing a studio in West Seneca that would continue to be used for the next two decades. Eighteen months after the purchase and format flip, tensions between Allen and Chmiel had reached a breaking point: Allen had allegedly used his talkback program The Town Crier to spew obscenities (which Allen denied), and Allen had increasingly tried to force WUWU to adopt a heavy metal format over the objections of Chmiel, advertisers and the board of directors. Quoth Allen: "He can't fire me. I don't fill teeth, and he doesn't know how to run a radio station." Allen had also developed paranoid delusions of Chmiel attempting to sell the then money-losing station to another buyer at a steep profit, which Chmiel denied. Chmiel fired Allen on May 21, 1983, only for Allen to refuse to accept the firing and show up to work the next day with an armed guard. When Chmiel himself hired two armed guards to keep Allen out of the WUWU studios, on May 27, 1983, Allen, Bunkfeldt and two accomplices drove equipment for remote broadcasting out to the Wethersfield transmitter site and hijacked the signal, where he declared an "emergency broadcast" and began playing heavy metal until Wyoming County sheriffs surrounded the transmitter site and arrested them; the hijacking lasted roughly one hour. The arrest also did not deter Allen, who again hijacked the station in early July; this incident was somewhat more successful, lasting nine hours throughout the overnight before being accosted by police.
Allen escaped criminal trespass and obstruction of justice prosecution when, in December 1983, the Wethersfield town judge presiding over the May trespassing case accepted a motion for dismissal on procedural grounds. The charges for the July incident were dropped because Allen had hired the winner of the county's district attorney election that November, which would have forced the county to hire a special prosecutor at their expense to prosecute the case. Allen and Chmiel both sued each other.
WUWU eventually shifted to a New Age and jazz format as "The Sound Future," a format that lasted until 1986.
WBYR During Memorial Day weekend in 1986, the station flipped to classic rock as "The Bear -- High Quality Rock and Roll."Alan Pergament, "WUWU Gets New Owner, New Format", The Buffalo News, April 30, 1986. WBYR had a brief moment of great success in the classic rock format; the heritage album-oriented rock station, WGRQ-FM, was at the time an adult contemporary music station known as "WRLT," and as such, WBYR was able to make inroads into the Buffalo market, including hiring WGRQ jock Slick Tom Tiberi. This, however, ended when WRLT changed back to classic rock as WGRF and hired back Tiberi. Chmiel finally gave up on the station and sold WBYR to John Casciani.
WBMW and WEZQ In November 1988, the station flipped to Smooth jazz as "The Wave", and changed call letters to WBMW.Alan Pergament, "The Wave Will Be Sweeping Across Radio Dial at WBMW", The Buffalo News, November 3, 1988. Due to continued poor ratings, the station then flipped to easy listening on August 6, 1990, as WEZQ ("Easy 107.7"), hoping to pick up disenfranchised listeners of WJYE, which shifted from their long-running easy listening format to adult contemporary two years prior. However, the format, which was already out of fashion by the time 107.7 adopted it, would be dropped on August 31, 1992.
WNUC On August 31, 1992, the station flipped to country music as WNUC. Initially branding as "New Country", WNUC would eventually be renamed "The Bullet". The station intended to compete with WYRK (and indirectly, WBEE, WPIG and many others). One of its longest-running formats, country on WNUC ran until October 2000, when Casciani sold the station to Adelphia Communications for $5,600,000.
WNSA
In October 2000, Adelphia flipped the station to sports radio as WNSA. This station was a relatively rare monaural FM station, unlike its stereophonic counterparts; this was in part to increase the station's coverage area. Its initial slogan was "The Sports Authority" (from which it drew its call sign) until the sporting goods retailer of the same name levied a lawsuit against Adelphia in 2001; the station modified the slogan to "Sports Paradise".
Between October 2000 and April 2004, Empire Sports Network, under VP/GM Bob Koshinski, operated the radio station, aimed at fans from Western New York into the Finger Lakes. The purpose of WNSA's existence was to challenge WGR, Buffalo's often antagonistic sports talk station. Howard Simon was recruited to host morning drive, longtime Buffalo sports talker Art Wander hosted during lunch, and radio newcomer Mike Schopp launched "Sports Talk for Smart People" during the afternoon drive. Later additions would include Jim Brinson, Doug Young (who defected from WGR and is widely credited as the person who landed the interviews and guests that made WNSA so popular), and Zig Fracassi, who had been a nationally syndicated host until the dissolution of the Sports Fan Radio Network. Jim Kelley, Mike Robitaille and Schopp (later replaced by Simon) hosted a two-hour show known as The Sharpshooters prior to Buffalo Sabres games. The station affiliated with Sporting News Radio and was among the first to carry the Sports USA Radio Network's NFL coverage. WNSA carried many of the same sporting events as Empire, including Sabres and Destroyers games, and WNSA consistently outperformed WGR in the ratings for most of its run.
WNSA also held several unique promotions such as the Western New York Sports Symposium, which was a yearly, two-day event held at an event center which included participation by the Buffalo Bills, Buffalo Sabres, Buffalo Bisons and most of the Buffalo area colleges. The symposium featured two days of sports talk from the event location and numerous round table discussions with dozens of notable Buffalo sports team players, coaches, alumni, announcers, and newspaper columnists.
WNSA also created a fictitious radio fantasy hockey game called Sabres Showdown that pitted the Buffalo Sabres 1975 Stanley Cup finalists against the 1999 Sabres finalist squad. The game featured actual Sabres play-by-play man Rick Jeanneret and analyst Mike Robitaille calling the action as well as staged and archival interviews with Sabres players and management from both eras. The taped broadcast was enough of a success to be rerun a year after its original broadcast. Other unique features included "Superfan," a humorous short-form serial about a Buffalo sports fan endowed with superpowers, and "Haseoke," a feature in which audiotapes allegedly from Sabres goaltender Dominik Hašek singing karaoke were played on-air (poking fun at Hašek's thick Bohemian accent).
During Empire's ownership, 107.7 added its first Buffalo-area translator, W297AB in Williamsville, to improve the station's signal quality in Buffalo and the inner-ring suburbs. In December 2018, the translator was transferred to AM 1400, by this point a sister station.
The station's fortunes would collapse when the Rigas/Adelphia Communications scandal was exposed. After filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the new Adelphia management decided to sell off WNSA despite its solid performance. That resulted in the retirement of Art Wander, the defection of Mike Schopp to WGR and part-time work at ESPN Radio. Adelphia Communications began to slash WNSA's budget to prepare it for sale. Howard Simon's show was moved to afternoon drive time, began simulcasting on Empire, and was dubbed The SimonCast, and the other personalities, none of whom seemed to be interested in the morning drive slot, rotated the AM shift (WNSA insisted on a local morning show because the Sporting News offering, Murray in the Morning, was deemed too inappropriate for its as-stated "PG-rated" listening audience). Ratings fell below those of WGR toward the end. The end of WNSA came when the station was sold to WGR's owner, Entercom Communications, in May 2004 for $10.5 million, and announced an immediate format change. Simon's show, however, would continue on WLVL in Lockport until November 2004, when he was recruited to host WGR's morning show.Alan Pergament, "Entercom ready to buy WNSA", The Buffalo News, March 9, 2004.Alan Pergament, "WNSA silences local sports talk", The Buffalo News, April 30, 2004.
Many WNSA staffers found jobs at WGR, while others (particularly those who had worked at both WNSA and WNUC) ended up at WYRK. Several hundred hours of WNSA's programming, including several unique specials, were archived by producer Steve Cichon and are available for purchase.
For legal purposes, upon Entercom's purchase of the station its official studio was shared with WCJW in Warsaw, a legal fiction which ended with the elimination of the Main Studio Rule by the FCC in 2017.
WLKK The Lake After Entercom closed on the purchase, WNSA began stunting with the sounds of crickets for a few days before flipping to a wide-ranging classic rock format, branded as "The Lake", and changed call letters to WLKK. The station maintained and exceeded the number of listeners that the station had during the peak of WNSA's run. WLKK indirectly took aim at the classic rock market and sought to create a more laid-back, relaxed atmosphere. The playlist of WLKK contained a large portion of hit songs from the 1970s and 1980s (broad enough that the station boasted it never repeated a song throughout an entire 24-hour day), less focused on hard rock and metal than most classic rock stations, but also containing the occasional deep track. In this sense, the station's format was adult album alternative. In addition, the station used a series of bumpers with flowing water, chirping birds, and a deep voice reading the station slogan.Anthony Violanti, "Music comes to 107.7 FM", The Buffalo News, May 25, 2004.