WTBQ
| Broadcast area | Orange County and Northern New Jersey, including Sussex and Passaic Counties |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 1110 kHz |
| Branding | "WTBQ" |
| Programming | |
| Format | Full service |
| Affiliations | ABC, MRN |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Frank R. Truatt (FST Broadcasting Corporation) |
| History | |
First air date | July 27, 1969 |
Call sign meaning | See "Station History" section |
| Technical information | |
| Facility ID | 22292 |
| Class | D |
| Power | 500 watts daytime |
| Translator(s) | 93.5 W228CG (Warwick) |
| Links | |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | wtbq.com |
WTBQ is an independently owned radio station broadcasting from Warwick, New York. The last locally-owned radio station left in Orange County, New York (and one of the few in the entire Hudson Valley), WTBQ broadcasts on 1110 AM and 93.5 FM, throughout Orange County and Northern New Jersey.
Station History
Local media mogul Ed Klein brought WTBQ to air July 27, 1969 with studios originally located in the village of Warwick. The call sign letters come from Klein's young daughter's affection for her Teddy Bear. Originally, WTBQ had a "Beautiful Music" format (dubbed "The Casual Q"), in contrast to Top 40 music, which Klein hated. In 1982 it was purchased by polka king Jimmy Sturr, who in 1984 moved the studios to the "Professional Building" located at 62 North Main Street in nearby Florida, New York. After another change in ownership (George Dacre's "Goodtime Broadcasting"), the station went silent in late 1992, but returned to the air under the station's current owner Frank "Smokin'" Truatt on July 1, 1994.
On November 30, 2007, WTBQ moved its studios from the Village of Florida, New York to 87 Ronald Reagan Boulevard in the Town of Warwick, NY. On February 7, 2008, WTBQ held a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony at their new studios, attended by the local news media, as well as many government officials and station personnel.
Ed Klein died on October 18, 2008, at the age of 86. Klein had long wanted Dixieland jazz music to be played at his funeral; WTBQ obliged by airing a program of New Orleans jazz selections during the service, with attendees tuning in on their car radios. [1] On July 27, 2009 (at 11:10 am, of course), WTBQ celebrated its 40th anniversary with a special ceremony at the station's broadcasting tower where a plaque was placed at the antenna site, honoring Ed Klein for signing on the station 40 years ago.
In June 2012, WTBQ moved again, this time to 179 Sanfordville Road, approximately two miles south of the Village of Warwick. Located in an older barn-shaped building next to a greenhouse (and dubbed by locals as "The Old Barn"), the new studios were finished soon after, and WTBQ held another "grand opening" on September 28, 2012. A month after the "grand opening", Hurricane Sandy knocked out power to the area on October 29, 2012; WTBQ was off the air for nearly a week until power was finally restored on November 4, marking it as the second longest time period the station had ever been off the air since the silent eighteen months of 1992.
On July 1, 2014, local officials (including State Senator William Larkin and Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus) honored Frank Truatt's 20 years of independent ownership in giving back to the community.
WTBQ today
Frank Truatt hosts the "The Frank Truatt Morning Show", which airs weekdays 7am to 9am Eastern Time with co-host Taylor Sterling and guests. A daily feature of the morning show is "Our Town", heard each day from 8:05-8:30 am, in which local politicians and people of interest are interviewed on a rotating basis. Live talk shows from 9am to 3pm including Orange County Executive, Steve Neuhaus, and other notables, business owners, physicians, with varied call-in shows plus consumer guru Clark Howard, and at 3pm it's "Intelligence for Your Life" with John Tesh, followed by music throughout the night.
A January 2014 article in The Wall Street Journal honored Frank Truatt for owning one of the last of the real "community" radio stations in the New York metro area.[2]
Special programming
Monday evenings from 6-8pm, station owner Frank Truatt hosts Rockollections, a show devoted to the 1970s.
NASCAR racing from the Motor Racing Network and the Performance Racing Network can be heard on the weekends, along with select Indycar Series races as well as Ned Jarrett's World of Racing. Warwick Valley High School football (airing on WTBQ since 1972) returns September 6, with Rich Arnott calling the action.
The station is an affiliate of ABC Radio and featured Paul Harvey until his death in 2009.
FM translator
At 1:30 pm on January 28, 2011, WTBQ switched its FM frequency to 93.5 MHz, after just over three years at 99.1 MHz. The new translator, W228CG, broadcasts at 500 watts; this is a considerable upgrade from the previous 19 watts, and the coverage area is about 50% larger than on 99.1.
Tune into 1110 AM or 93.5 FM and stream live at www.wtbq.com or download the app to your cell or tablet. Listened live on the internet 24 hours a day since 1999, the first station in the Hudson Valley to do so. WTBQ was also the first area radio station with a website, back in 1995.
WTBQ became one of the first American AM stations to use an FM translator when it began airing on W256BD on January 25, 2008. The arrangement, made possible by a Special Temporary Authority from the Federal Communications Commission and Digital Radio Broadcasting, allowed WTBQ to broadcast its programs 24 hours a day via an FM antenna located on WTBQ's AM broadcast tower. (The new translator also broadcasts from WTBQ's tower, located in the Town of Warwick.
Notable alumni
- Rich Arnott
- Ted Baker
- Frank Bruno
- Joe Cyr
- George Dacre
- Rick Davis
- Rob Dillman
- Mike Erickson
- Mark Graham
- Eric Hodge
- Howard Hoffman
- Jimmy Howes
- Max Kinkel
- Joe Mann
- John Marino
- Alex Miller
- John Moultrie
- Bob Neal
- Joe Ryan
- Jimmy Sturr
- Dick Wells
- Mark West
External links
- WTBQ website
- Facility details for Facility ID WTBQ ({{{2}}}) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
- {{{2}}} in Nielsen Audio's AM station database
- Template:FMQ
- W228CG at FCCdata.org
- Spotlight