WGYY (100.3 FM) and WGYI (98.5 FM), branded as Froggy 100.3 and 98.5, are commercial

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

s in Crawford County in Northwestern Pennsylvania. Both stations

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

and are owned by Seven Mountains Media. WGYY is licensed to

Meadville, Pennsylvania Meadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania. The city is within of Erie and within of Pittsburgh. It was the first permanent settlement in Northwestern Pennsylvania. The population was 13,388 at the 2010 censu ...

. WGYI is licensed to

Oil City, Pennsylvania Oil City is a city in Venango County, Pennsylvania known for its prominence in the initial exploration and development of the petroleum industry. It is located at a bend in the Allegheny River at the mouth of Oil Creek. Initial settlement of Oi ...

History

100.3 WGYY

WGYY

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...

the air in 1948 as WMGW-FM, the first FM radio station in Crawford County. It was founded by Meadville physician Dr. Harry C. Winslow. Dr. Winslow chose his daughter's initials (Mary Grace Winslow) for the station's call letters. WMGW-FM was co-owned with

AM 1490 AM or Am may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * A minor, a minor scale in music * ''A.M.'' (Chris Young album) * ''A.M.'' (Wilco album) * ''AM'' (Abraham Mateo album) * ''AM'' (Arctic Monkeys album) * AM (musician), American musician ...

WMGW WMGW (1490 AM) is a commercial radio station in Meadville, Pennsylvania, the seat of government for Crawford County. WMGW is the flagship station of the "Allegheny News-Talk-Sports Network," also owned by its licensee, Seven Mountains Media. P ...

. For the first three decades, WMGW and WMGW-FM mostly

their programming. Like many small-town radio stations, WMGW-AM-FM broadcast a

full service radio {{Unreferenced, date=October 2008 Full service (also known as hometown radio) is a type of radio format; the format is characterized by a mix of music programming (usually drawing from formats such as adult contemporary, country, or oldies) and a l ...

format through the 1960s, 70s and 80s, consisting of local, world and national news, local and Pittsburgh sports, and

adult contemporary music Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

. World and national news was provided by

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

and the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

radio network. In the early 1970s, WMGW-AM-FM were purchased by the Regional Broadcasters Group headquartered in

Kingston, New York Kingston is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany, New York, Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with t ...

. The FM station's call letters were changed to WZPR as a tribute to Meadville's Talon Corporation which, nearly a century earlier, had become America's first manufacturer of "hookless fasteners" or zippers. While WMGW's AM format remained the same, WZPR changed to automated

beautiful music Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...

, playing quarter hour sweeps of mostly instrumental

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

s of popular songs. In 1978 WZPR switched to its current format,

, eventually taking the WGYY call letters.

98.5 WGYI

On May 1, 1957, WGYI signed on the air. Its original callsign was WDJR and its effective radiated power was 3,400 watts. It mostly simulcast its AM sister station,

AM 1340 1340 kHz is defined as a Class C (local) frequency in the coterminous United States and such stations on this frequency are limited to 1,000 watts. U.S. stations outside the coterminous United States (Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, & the U.S. V ...

WKRZ (now 1120 kHz WKQW). WKRZ and WDJR were owned by WKRZ, Inc. and carried programming from

NBC Radio The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...

Sale to Seven Mountains Media

It was announced on October 12, 2022 that Forever Media is selling 34 stations, including WGYY/WGYI and the entire Meadville/Franklin cluster, to

State College State College is a city in central Pennsylvania, United States. State College may also refer to: Related to State College, Pennsylvania * State College Area School District, a school district serving State College * State College Area High School ...

-based Seven Mountains Media for $17.3 million. The deal closed on January 2, 2023.

References

External links

* * * {{coord, 41.631, N, 80.177, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title GYY Country radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1978