WDGG

WDGG

City of license	Ashland, Kentucky
Broadcast area	Huntington, West Virginia Ashland, Kentucky Ironton, Ohio
Branding	93.7 The Dawg
Slogan	"Country Favorites and Fun"
Frequency	93.7MHz
First air date	October 1948
Format	Country
ERP	100,000 Watts
Class	C
Callsign meaning	WDoGG (Dawg)
Former callsigns	WCMI-FM (1948-70) WAMX-FM (1970-88) WRVC-FM (1988-90s)
Affiliations	CBS (1945-59, 1960-72) ABC (1972-83)
Owner	Kindred Communications
Website	http://www.wdgg.fm

WDGG (93.7 FM) is one of several country music formatted radio stations in the Huntington, West Virginia, Ashland, Kentucky, and Ironton, Ohio, market area. Although the Dawg's studios are located in Huntington, its city of license is Ashland following the original Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocation of its predecessor WCMI-FM. The Dawg is the flagship station of the Marshall University sports radio network. The station along with WRVC-FM, WRVC-AM, and WCMI are owned by Huntington-based Kindred Communications.

WDGG has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100,000 watts and is licensed to the city of Ashland, due to West Virginia only being an FCC Zone I state, which would only allow the station to have 50,000 watts of maximum power if the city of license was transferred to Huntington.

History

Signing on the air in October 1948, the station currently known as WDGG began broadcasting as WCMI-FM in Ashland, KY; the station simulcasted its AM sister station WCMI's broadcast schedule. The original call letters were said to refer to the steel industry of Ashland, KY as "Where Coal Meets Iron." On November 20, 1970, the call letters were changed to WAMX-FM and ownership was transferred to W. Richard Martin and Stereo 94, Inc. The station originally broadcast with an adult contemporary music format and experimented with an album oriented rock format at night during the early 1970s. In the mid 1970s, WAMX-FM (also known as 94X) adopted a contemporary hit radio (CHR) format until its sale to Storer broadcasting in 1983. With the sale, the studios moved to nearby Huntington, WV and the station adopted an album oriented rock format (AOR). On April 30, 1988, the call letters representing the River Cities were adopted and the license became known as WRVC-FM. The dormant WAMX call sign was adopted by an unrelated station (at 106.3 MHz) in the Huntington market on January 6, 1997. The current call letters of WDGG were granted by the FCC on February 6, 1995.

WDGG is currently a full-time country station that also carries NASCAR Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup series, as well as Marshall football and men's basketball. WDGG's sister stations include the following:

• WRVC, also known as ESPN 930-AM, is a 5,000-watt station (daytime) carrying sports for about 21 of 24 hours on-air from the nation's sports leader, ESPN. Events include Marshall sports (football and men's basketball also on WDGG; AM also carries women's basketball and baseball), Triple Crown racing, NFL, NCAA football and basketball, NBA, NHL, IRL-Indy 500, NASCAR Craftsman Trucks and Spring Valley High School football and boy's basketball. The station formerly was known as WSAZ and WGNT.
• WCMI 1340 AM is a progressive talk station operating with 1,000 watts from a tower in Catlettsburg, Ky. This facility carries some sporting events, including West Virginia Power baseball, Spring Valley boys basketball, and NCAA football and basketball

Programming

Notable weekday programming on WDGG includes "The Radio Ranch" on mornings (Rod Willis, one of the morning duo, was featured on several episodes of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution; he initially was critical of Oliver's movement but later sided with him), Chuck Black, on late morning, Rocky on mid-days, Crawdawg on afternoons, Neon Nights with Lia weekday evenings, and Danny Wright overnight.

External links

• The Dawg WDGG official website
• FCC Database Return for WDGG
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WDGG
• Radio-Locator information on WDGG
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WDGG
• History of WCMI