WVKO (AM)

WVKO is an American AM radio station licensed to broadcast in Columbus, Ohio. It launched a translator in early 2018, broadcasting from the Huntington Center in downtown Columbus at 250 watts on 92.9MHz.

History

From 1963 until February 1997, WVKO was Columbus' R&B/Soul music station, its tagline being "The Rhythm of the City". Up until the early 1980s, FM sister station WSPO picked up WVKO programing into the evening hours, since the AM station held a daytime-only license at the time. WSPO later became WSNY "Sunny 95" in the fall of 1982 playing light adult contemporary. At some point during the mid-80s, it obtained a license to air music 24 hours a day. It was during the R&B/Soul years that WVKO employed Ted Williams as an overnight disc jockey. Williams gained fame in 2011 when, while homeless in Columbus, he was discovered by a videographer for the Columbus Dispatch and a video featuring his "golden radio voice" went viral on the Internet.^[1]

In early February 1997, WVKO dropped its soul/R&B format and switched to an all-gospel music format while also airing a variety of sermon-based shows featuring local and nationally known pastors during the daytime and evening hours. In 2005, the gospel format was modified to airing only between the hours of 6 am and 6 pm on weekdays and Sundays with R&B, soul, and southern blues airing during the evening and overnight hours and on Saturdays, interspersed with various local talk and information programs aimed at the African-American community. It was also the broadcast outlet for the Columbus Clippers minor league baseball team.

WVKO went off the air on May 5, 2006 due to the upcoming expiration of its transmitter land lease and major financial issues by its previous owner Stop 26 Riverbend which was based in Youngstown and owned the former WODB through its Associated Radio division. WODB is now WNND owned by Saga Communications. The station moved to another transmitter site in 2007, at which point it returned to the air.^[2]

The station license was transferred on January 22, 2007 to Bernard Ohio LLC following a period under the supervision of a bankruptcy trustee, despite some formal objections filed with the FCC.^[3]

On March 15, 2007, the FCC granted the station's new owners Special Temporary Authority permission to resume broadcasting from its new location at reduced power, in order to prevent the loss of the station license due to the station being off the air for a period of one year - which automatically results in forfeiture of a station's FCC license.

On December 6, 2007, after 18 months of going dark, WVKO returned to the airwaves in a new Progressive Talk format as a local affiliate to the now-defunct Air America radio network, with local call-in talk shows interspersed in WVKOs programming such as "Fight Back" hosted by Dr. Robert Fitrakis, and "Blue State Diner" hosted by Michael Alwood.

In the fall of 2008, WVKO was sold to St. Gabriel Radio, and on December 23, 2008, the format was flipped from Progressive Talk to Catholic programming. Subsequently. the former WVKO progressive talk website was being maintained by the Ohio Majority Radio group to serve the station's former listenership, with streaming audio of many of the former WVKO national talk programs aired by Air America. With the bankruptcy of Air America, the site was taken offline.

St. Gabriel Radio acquisition of WOSU

On September 9, 2011, St. Gabriel Radio with the help of its supporters purchased the former WOSU 820 kHz from The Ohio State University in September 2011. The sale and transfer of license from Ohio State to St. Gabriel Radio was approved in November 7, 2011 by the FCC. 820 AM was assigned a new callsign (WVSG) after WOSU ceased programming on December 9, 2011, went silent on December 14 and returned to the air as WVSG on December 17 (St. Gabriel programming now airs on AM 820), as such St. Gabriel programming likewise ceased on 1580 AM at 6pm on December 20.

Its fundraiser "Leave A Legacy" was intended to purchase WVKO until 2010 when The Ohio State University put WOSU up for sale. The WOSU 5,000 watt daytime signal (790 watts at night) along with its wider coverage area was the reason in St. Gabriel's purchase of AM 820.

On December 29, 2011, WVKO relaunched their website and announced a return of the progressive-talk format to the station on January 2.^[4]

It was announced on December 14, 2012, that the format would change, mostly due to a lack of advertiser support. The station changed to Gospel on December 17.^[5]

WVKO and WVKO-FM were sold to TSJ Radio, LLC effective December 19, 2014, at a price of $743,750.

Ted Williams briefly returned to his WVKO roots as the morning show host in January 2016.

WVKO was sold in early 2018 and on March 4, 2018, the format was once again modified from its all-gospel format to it's previous format it had from 2005-2006, with gospel music and inspirational talk programming airing on Sundays and during the weekday daytime hours and R&B, soul, southern blues, and public affairs talk programming airing on Saturdays and during the evening and overnight hours on weeknights, which was also the format of the former W240CX that aired on 95.9 FM as "The Drum" from January 22, 2015 until June 21, 2016 which returned to the FM airwaves on 92.9 FM simulcast with WVKO AM.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WVKO
• Radio-Locator Information on WVKO
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WVKO

Coordinates: 40°03′42″N 82°56′41″W / 40.06167°N 82.94472°W / 40.06167; -82.94472