WXTK
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| City of license | West Yarmouth, Massachusetts |
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| Broadcast area | Cape Cod |
| Branding | "95 WXTK Newsradio" |
| Frequency | 95.1 MHz |
| First air date | 1949 (as WOCB-FM/94.3) |
| Format | erp = 50,000 watts |
| HAAT | 80 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 6250 |
| Callsign meaning | W eXtreme TalK (proposed, but never used, station branding) |
| Owner | Qantum of Cape Cod, LLC |
| Website | www.95wxtk.com |
WXTK (95.1 FM), known as "95 WXTK Newsradio", is a news/talk radio station licensed to West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and headquartered in Hyannis, Massachusetts. It is the direct descendant of Cape Cod's first commercial radio station, WOCB.
WOCB first signed on as an AM station in 1941 as an affiliate of the NBC Blue Network, broadcasting mostly network programming (soap operas, radio drama, newscasts, etc.) with some local programming, remaining affiliated with that network after it became ABC. When ABC broke into four sub-networks in 1968, WOCB AM and FM became affiliated with ABC's American Information Network.
Its FM signal, for years a simulcast of its AM signal, signed on in 1949 on Channel 232/94.3Mc. (becoming the Cape's first FM commercial station as well), and after numerous FCC allocation changes for the FM band, eventually settled on 94.9 Megahertz.
By the 1970s, WOCB-FM broke away from simulcasting the AM during midday and evening hours to broadcast easy-listening music while still simulcasting the AM's format (then adult contemporary with a heavy news commitment) during weekday drive times and hourly newscasts the rest of the broadcast day.
Interesting note: In the summer through winter of 1981, the afternoon drive announcer on WOCB was Edd Hall. He later did voice work for "Late Night with David Letterman" from 1982 - 1990 and was, of course, Jay Leno's announcer on "the Tonight Show with Jay Leno" from 1992 - 2004.
In 1991, Hurricane Bob blew down WOCB's transmitter tower, and the damage suffered was so severe that they could not afford to rebuild. The station was then sold to Ernie Boch, Sr., an automobile dealer in the Boston suburb of Norwood, Massachusetts, who turned WOCB-FM into the flagship station for his new Boch Broadcasting company. WXTK's first news director, Hal Lamb, applied to the FCC to change the station's calls to WXTK, or "X-Talk," a reference to the rarity of Newstalk radio on the FM dial at the time. WOCB-AM was donated to Boston University, which used it to relay WBUR-FM in Boston, changing call letters to WBUR (AM).
When WXTK returned to the air in late 1991, Lamb had negotiated several syndication agreements including license to broadcast the Rush Limbaugh radio program. Limbaugh himself acknowledged his newest affiliate by remarking on-air, "I am now beaming into Kennedy compound."
However, WXTK's eventual station branding of "Extreme Talk", was never actually used, though a few station IDs were produced using the branding (as late as 1998, the unused IDs were still in the station archives). Despite the unused branding, WXTK remained a news and talk station, and over the next few years would become the Cape's home of such popular syndicated hosts as G. Gordon Liddy (cancelled from the station as of July 2006), Rush Limbaugh, and Howie Carr, and longtime local morning hosts Ed Lambert and Don McKeag.
In September, 1997, responding to listener comments of signal interference from WHOM, a powerful 94.9 FM signal based out of New Hampshire broadcasting from the top of Mount Washington, WXTK changed their frequency to 95.1Mc. (Channel 236), increasing their signal radius significantly. To ease people into the new frequency, there were two weeks of promotional material over-the-air, and after the switch their branding was changed to "95.1 is 95 WXTK", putting stress on the word "is".
In 2005, Boch Broadcasting sold WXTK and its sister stations to Quantum Communications (now called Quantum of Cape Cod, LLC), owner of WRZE (now a simulcast of sports radio WEEI) and WCIB (Cool 102), though Quantum had to sell what is now "Frank FM" to Nassau Broadcasting in order to stay within FCC regulations. Until that sale, WOCB/WXTK had been broadcasting from the same studio building for over 60 years.
Local, regional & national shows featured include The Ed Lambert Show, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Howie Carr, Sean Hannity, C.L. Fonari's Gardenline, Fooding Around with John Rega, The Handyman Hotline with Larry Egan. The station broadcasts games for the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots & Boston Celtics.
The news staff featuring Judith Goetz & Mark Mumford have tallied countless Awards many due to their Spectrum Series. Operations Manager Steve McVie & PD Joe Rossetti oversee programming.
According to Arbitron, WXTK is currently (as of Fall 2008) the highest-rated radio station on Cape Cod, with a 10.4 rating.
[edit] External links
- Query the FCC's FM station database for WXTK
- Radio-Locator information on WXTK
- Query Arbitron's FM station database for WXTK
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