WZFC (1400 AM) is a broadcast

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 ...

licensed to

Winchester, Virginia Winchester is the most north western independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Frederick County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Winchester wit ...

, United States. The station carries a

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

, and

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

format. WZFC serves Winchester along with Frederick and

Clarke Clarke is a surname which means "clerk". The surname is of English and Irish origin and comes from the Latin . Variants include Clerk and Clark. Clarke is also uncommonly chosen as a given name. Irish surname origin Clarke is a popular surname i ...

counties in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. Originally known for 80 years under the WINC

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

, the station was launched by Richard Field Lewis, Jr. on June 26, 1941 as Winchester's first radio station. The station remained in the hands of the Lewis family until sold to North Carolina-based Centennial Broadcasting in 2007. The station's current

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

, established in 1996, consists mostly of conservative talk programs and top-of-the-hour news from

Fox News Radio Fox News Radio is an American radio network owned by Fox News. It is syndicated to over 500 AM and FM radio stations across the United States. It also supplies programming for three channels on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. History In 2003, ...

. Sports programming from

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

is also broadcast. Prior formats (from WINC) include

middle of the road music Middle of the road (also known by its acronym MOR) is a commercial radio format and popular music genre. Music associated with this term is strongly melodic and uses techniques of vocal harmony and light orchestral arrangements. The format was even ...

adult contemporary 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, quie ...

, and

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980s ...

. Several milestones have occurred during the station's 80 years of history. WINC was the station on which

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, ...

singer Patsy Cline made her debut in 1948, when Cline asked the leader of a "hillbilly band" for a chance to perform with them on air. In the late 1950s, the station's chief engineer, Philip Whitney, designed a

CONELRAD CONELRAD (''Control of Electromagnetic Radiation'') was a method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War. It was intended to allow continuous broadcast of civil defense informa ...

alarm device for FM stations to warn listeners in the event of an enemy attack during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. Whitney also created many of the remote control systems used by radio stations. He was awarded for his work by the

National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a trade association and lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States. The NAB represents more than ...

in 1970. WINC had difficulty renewing its license in the early 1970s, as it was airing 22 minutes of commercials per hour—in excess of what the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC) permitted. The station encountered further trouble in 1988 when a local prosecutor called one of its promotions an "illegal cash lottery"; a judge disagreed. In that same year, the news department at WINC received an Associated Press Broadcasters Association national award for "Best Radio Spot News". The entirety of the station's program schedule began

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 ...

ing on then-sister station WZFC (104.9 FM) on January 31, 2018 but the simulcast ended in mid-November 2020 after Centennial's sale of WINC-FM (92.5) to

Educational Media Foundation Educational Media Foundation (formerly EMF Broadcasting, abbreviated EMF) is an American nonprofit Christian media ministry based in Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. EMF is the parent company of K-LOVE and Air1—the world's largest ...

. Following a subsequent sale of the renamed WINC-FM (105.5) and WZFC to Metro Radio, WINC assumed the WZFC call letters on June 30, 2021 with Colonial Radio Group of Williamsport, LLC. taking over operations via a

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...

on July 1.

History

Pre-broadcast and launch

Richard Field Lewis, Jr. was a graduate of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He founded

Fredericksburg, Virginia Fredericksburg is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,982. The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the United States Department of Commerce combines the city of Fredericksburg wi ...

radio station

WFVA WFVA (1230 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Fredericksburg, Virginia. WFVA is owned and operated by Centennial Broadcasting. It airs a talk radio format. The studios, offices and transmitter are on Mimosa Street in Fredericksburg. T ...

in 1939. Before that, he had worked at KFXM in San Bernardino, California, as chief engineer. Lewis filed the initial application for a new station in Winchester, Virginia, with the

(FCC) on November 24, 1940. The application specified a transmitting frequency of 1370 AM, with a power of 250

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s, the maximum permitted for stations operating on "local" frequencies at the time. This application was approved and a construction permit (CP) issued on February 4, 1941. However, the pending implementation of the

North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA, es, Convenio Regional Norteamericano de Radiodifusión) refers to a series of international treaties that defined technical standards for AM band (mediumwave) radio stations. These agreem ...

(NARBA) mandated that on March 29, 1941 most stations on 1370 AM would move to 1400 AM, so the authorization specified this adjusted frequency. In early March 1941, the FCC assigned the station the

WINC, derived from the first four letters in Winchester. At 6:57am on June 26, 1941, WINC began broadcasting as Winchester's first radio station. Two weeks later, on July 13, Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd and Governor James Hubert Price attended the dedication of the station. The first announcer on WINC was Grant Pollock, who had been hired as the station's commercial sales manager. Pollock came to Winchester from NBC Radio in Los Angeles. At the time of WINC's launch, Winchester had a population of 12,095, with only 2,968 radios. In June 1941, the station announced it would join the NBC Blue Network the following month. Throughout the station's existence, WINC's studios have been located at 520 North Pleasant Valley Road in Winchester. The address at launch was 520 Kerr Street, later incorporated into Pleasant Valley Road.

History since launch

World War II

Less than six months after the station's first broadcast, WINC carried live descriptions of the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

and President Roosevelt's " Infamy Speech" the following day. With the United States entry to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, WINC participated in the war effort on the air and at its studios. The

City of Winchester The City of Winchester () is a local government district in Hampshire, England, with a city status. The district covers the ancient settlement of the city of Winchester itself, but also covers a large area of central Hampshire including Bis ...

erected an Aircraft Warning Service station, manned by volunteers, beside the WINC facility. The station aired an hour-long special program called "Virginia Schools at War Mobilization" on February 22, 1943. The program involved approximately 618,000 schoolchildren and teachers from around the state, war-savings staff, and state and civic dignitaries. The special, broadcast live from Mount Vernon, was carried on 13 other Virginia stations and on WWDC in Washington, D.C. WINC participated in another wartime broadcast, this one in late January 1944, to encourage the public to buy

War Bonds War bonds (sometimes referred to as Victory bonds, particularly in propaganda) are debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war without raising taxes to an unpopular level. They are a ...

. A total of $150,525 in bonds were sold during the two-hour program, broadcast on 13 stations in Virginia and one in Washington, D.C. On June 15, 1945, the NBC Blue Network formally changed its name to the

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Cali ...

(ABC). WINC remained an affiliate of the renamed network. In the same year, C. Leslie Golliday was hired as the station's production manager. Golliday also built and launched two stations of his own:

WEPM WEPM is a News/Talk/Sports formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Martinsburg, West Virginia, serving the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. WEPM is owned and operated by John and David Raese, through licensee West Virginia Radio Corpora ...

in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1946 and WCLG in

Morgantown, West Virginia Morgantown is a city in and the county seat of Monongalia County, West Virginia, Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States, situated along the Monongahela River. The largest city in North-Central West Virginia, Morgantown is best known as th ...

, in 1954.

Post World War II

The station began carrying

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

's "Your Esso Weather Reporter"

spots Spot or SPOT may refer to: Places * Spot, North Carolina, a community in the United States * The Spot, New South Wales, a locality in Sydney, Australia * South Pole Traverse, sometimes called the South Pole Overland Traverse People * Spot (produ ...

on April 22, 1946. The Esso programs included the "latest weather prediction and brief commercial". WINC began carrying programming from the Keystone Broadcasting System (KBS) and Lang–Worth Feature Programs in 1946 and 1948 respectively. Both Keystone and Lang-Worth were electrical transcription networks. Programming from Lang-Worth was removed from the station's schedule in 1951, while Keystone programming remained until 1960. Richard F. Lewis, Jr., launched

WINC-FM WINC-FM (105.5 FM) is a radio station licensed to Berryville, Virginia, serving the Northern Shenandoah Valley. The station is currently stunting with Christmas music. WINC-FM is owned by Metro Radio, Inc. History In November 2020, the the ...

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

to WINC, on November 18, 1946. A January 1947 contest on WINC was responsible for knocking out the entire telephone system for the city of Winchester. Mark Sheeler, a disc jockey at WINC, gave a "wolf whistle" as the signal for Winchester area "housewives" to call the studio. The first one to reach him would win "a free pair of nylon hose and a $10 handbag". The station received around 4,000 simultaneous phone calls; the first call to get through was from the telephone company. Sheeler was informed that his contest was jamming local phone lines. He quickly made an on-air announcement calling off the contest. On August 8, 1947, WINC applied to move from 1400 to 950 AM. In the same application, the station requested an increase in the station's power to 1,000 watts during the day and 500 watts at night. More than two years later, the application was dismissed and WINC remained at its original frequency and power. Fourteen-year-old

singer Virginia "Ginny" Hensley, who later became Patsy Cline, began her career by making her broadcast debut on WINC in 1948. Hensley asked "Joltin'" Jim McCoy, the leader of a "hillbilly band" called "The Melody Playboys", about to perform on the station, for a chance to sing with them. She told the band leader, "If you just give me a chance to sing with you, I'll never ask for pay." Cline continued to perform regularly on Saturday mornings on WINC. In 1948 and 1949, respectively,

Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...

and

Bob Hope Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 5 ...

visited WINC, where they were interviewed on-the-air. Crosby and Hope were each in town for the city's annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. In early 1950, Lewis hired

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...

. Chambers was an American journalist (who had previously worked at

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

), Communist Party member, and a former Soviet agent. Chambers was a "principal figure in the

Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...

case". WINC joined the

NBC Radio Network The NBC, 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 Blue Network, NBC Blue Network it was ...

(previously named NBC Red) on November 1, 1951, after more than ten years as an ABC affiliate (previously called NBC Blue). WINC rejoined ABC Radio, carrying both networks' programming, on January 18, 1952, but dropped NBC programming in 1953. WINC became one of the flagship members of the Washington Senators Baseball Network, established in May 1952. The station added the long-running

Voice of Prophecy The ''Voice of Prophecy'', founded in 1929 by H.M.S. Richards, Sr., is a Seventh-day Adventist religious radio ministry headquartered in Loveland, Colorado. Initially airing in 1929 on a single radio station in Los Angeles the ''Voice of Proph ...

program on June 3, 1953. On October 18, 1957, WINC owner Richard F. Lewis, Jr., died, and control of WINC passed to his widow, Marion Park Lewis. Ownership of the station was transferred again on January 31, 1964, from Richard F. Lewis Jr., Inc., a company owned by Marion Park Lewis, to Mid-Atlantic Network Inc., a corporation wholly owned by the Lewis family. The station applied for and received a construction permit on August 9, 1958, to increase its broadcasting power from 250 to 1,000 watts, both day and night. The FCC approved the application in January 1961 but only for a daytime power increase. In 1959, WINC engineer Philip Whitney designed a

alarm device for FM stations. The CONELRAD system allowed for early nationwide warnings in the event of possible enemy attack during the

. Whitney is also credited with creating many of the remote control systems used by radio stations, including the microwave remote control system. The

presented Whitney with its annual Engineering Award on April 7, 1970, for his work.

1960s through 1980s

In the 1960s, the station hosted interviews with several prominent figures.

Paul Harvey Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous ''The Rest o ...

, in town for a speaking engagement, broadcast his "News and Comment" program from WINC studios on April 14, 1962. President Lyndon B. Johnson, visiting for the Apple Blossom Festival in 1964, was interviewed live on the station. The station was the first in Winchester to announce the assassinations of

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

in 1963 and

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, a ...

in 1968. While attempting to renew the station's license in early 1971, Mid-Atlantic Network ran into trouble with the FCC due to the quantity of commercials the station was airing. The station was carrying 22 minutes of commercials an hour according to a letter from then-FCC Broadcast Bureau Chief Francis R. Welsh. Welsh said in the letter that the FCC was not convinced the amount of commercials served the community in a positive way. At the time, the FCC allowed no more than 18 minutes of commercials per hour. However, the station's license was ultimately renewed on May 14, 1971. Part of WINC's programming in 1977 included daily political commentaries from former California governor

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

. WINC remained an ABC Radio affiliate in 1978, carrying its American Contemporary Network with a

format. WINC added

music to its format in 1980. In 1981, the first year for which ratings information is available, WINC led all other area stations with a 16.3 rating. The station dropped the middle of the road music in 1982, airing only adult contemporary music. In 1985, WINC removed ABC Radio's "American Contemporary Network" from its schedule in favor of ABC's "American Entertainment Network", while continuing to air an adult contemporary format. The station increased its nighttime power to 1,000 watts in 1986. The news department at WINC received an Associated Press Broadcasters Association national award for "Best Radio Spot News" in 1988.

=1988 "Lottery" lawsuit

= The local prosecutor,

Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Thomson, filed suit against WINC and sister station WINC-FM in June 1988 for a promotion Thomson called an "illegal cash lottery". A license plate number of a car with a WINC bumper sticker was announced over the air, and the owner was given 92 minutes to call in and choose to accept a prize of $92 or give up the money for a chance of winning $9,200. Thomson compared the contest to the game show ''

Let's Make a Deal ''Let's Make a Deal'' (also known as ''LMAD'') is an American television musical comedy variety-game show that originated in the United States in 1963 and has since been produced in many countries throughout the world. The program was created an ...

''. On December 19, 1988, Winchester Circuit Court Judge Perry Sarver ruled in favor of WINC stating he did not believe "promotional plans such as was used ... are in violation of the lottery statute". Sarver also said it would require a "substantial expenditure" for the contest to be considered a lottery.

1990s and after

By 1991, WINC was airing a

format, which was dropped a year later, returning to adult contemporary. Talk programs were added in 1994 and all music dropped two years after that. Also in 1996, WINC became an affiliate of AP Radio. With the change to News/Talk, WINC garnered only a 2.9 in the 1996 radio ratings. In contrast, sister station WINC-FM received a 12.1 during the same ratings period. The station's Internet presence also began in 1996, as a

subpage A subpage usually refers to a lower level web page in a website or wiki. Example website In this example website, news, about, portfolio and contact are subpages of home. Also, study one and study two are subpages of portfolio. Wikis ...

within

WINC-FM's website. WINC launched its own website in 2008. In 1998, WINC began using the slogan "The Right Side of the AM Dial". The station picked up CBS and

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

affiliations in 2000, dropping the Associated Press. On October 22, 2007, WINC debuted a live and local morning show called ''The Winchester Morning Magazine'' airing weekdays from to The program, hosted by Michael Haman, featured topics ranging from local general interest to news. The program was cancelled under a year later in September 2008, and the station returned to syndicated programming in the mornings. Also in 2008, WINC began using the "First in Winchester, First in News" slogan.

=2007 to 2020 sales

= On May 17, 2007, Mid-Atlantic Network announced it was selling WINC to North Carolina-based Centennial Broadcasting. The price of the sale, initially reported at $36 million, also included

, WWRT (now WVRX), and WWRE (now

) in Winchester and

WBQB WBQB is an adult contemporary 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 l ...

and

in Fredericksburg. Later reports had the price of the sale at $35.972 million. Centennial CEO Allen B. Shaw, commenting in a '' Winchester Star'' interview on the sale, said he had been considering buying the company for several months. At the time of the interview, he did not foresee any changes to the stations. The sale

closed Closed may refer to: Mathematics * Closure (mathematics), a set, along with operations, for which applying those operations on members always results in a member of the set * Closed set, a set which contains all its limit points * Closed interval, ...

in August 2007, and in the last ratings book under Lewis Family ownership, WINC received a 2.7 rating. The station's ratings have stayed within a two- to three-point range, while the format has remained the same after the sale. WINC celebrated its 75th year on the air on June 26, 2016. The station aired vignettes with former employees and a classic photo album was added on the station's website. Then sister-station WZFC (on the FM dial) began simulcasting WINC on January 31, 2018, extending WINC's programming into

Front Royal Front Royal is the only incorporated town in Warren County, Virginia, United States. The population was 15,011 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. History The entire Shenandoah Valley including the area to become F ...

and

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

, as well as parts of

Warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval Angl ...

and Shenandoah Counties in

. The addition of the FM simulcast was something Operations manager Mike Herald had considered "for quite some time" but only brought to fruition due to the current political climate. Herald felt the "conservative lean" of the hosts aired by WINC would "resonate really well with the folks here in the valley" as " Mr. Trump has made things very exciting". The fact that Warren and Shenandoah Counties voted Republican or "red" by "at least a 30-point margin" in the 2016 Presidential Election and the 2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election also made it a "natural fit". On October 8, 2020,

began the process to acquire long-time sister station WINC-FM, for $1.75 million. WINC, and other sister stations WZFC and WXBN, were not affected by this sale. WZFC, which had been simulcasting WINC since 2018, dropped its simulcast of WINC and began simulcasting WINC-FM in preparation for that station's sale and subsequent format change. Centennial Broadcasting announced on April 30, 2021 that it was selling sister stations

and WZFC to Fairfax, Virginia-based Metro Radio, Inc. for $225,000. WINC would not included be the sale. This latest sale would leave WINC and its long-time studio on North Pleasant Valley Radio in Winchester, which the station has been in since its launch, from the original Lewis cluster. Allen B. Shaw, Centennial's President and CEO, said in a May 2021 interview with '' The Winchester Star'' that the station "hasn't had great financial success" and he would "hate for" WINC to "go dark", he " ouldn’trule it out". Shaw did say, before taking the station dark, Centennial would to donate the station to a nonprofit group, like a college or university or a religious organization.

=2021 sale and callsign change

= WINC celebrated its 80th year on the air on June 26, 2021. On June 30, 2021, the callsign of WINC would change for the first time in its 80 year history to WZFC. On July 1, 2021, Colonial Radio Group of Williamsport, LLC, which began operating WZFC via a

, began the process to purchase WZFC outright for $25,000 from Centennial Broadcasting. Todd Bartley, owner of Colonial, in an interview with '' The Winchester Star'', said that he intends to put more "local programming" on the station and is "encourag nglisteners to contact the station" letting the new owners know "what shows

he public He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

want the station to broadcast and contribute ideas on how it can better serve the community". The sale to Colonial does not include the station's long-time North Pleasant Valley Road studios or transmission site. Colonial will need to acquire new studios, but Bartley said Colonial "is in talks with another area radio station about sharing its transmission facilities". Centennial, which will continue to own the station's North Pleasant Valley Road studios will either attempt to sell the building outright or demolish the building entirely. The station's transmission tower will be taken down "eventually". Centennial Broadcasting's president and CEO Allen Shaw, in the same '' Winchester Star'' interview, said that the company attempted to give the station to Metro Radio, which purchased former sister stations WINC-FM and WKDV-FM, for free but "Metro didn't want it". Shaw stated had Colonial not purchased WZFC, Centennial would have "had no other option but take it off the air permanently and surrender its license to the FCC". Bartley went on to say, while Colonial intends for WZFC to carry more "local programming", the station will still carry a

format.

Programming

WZFC carries a

format established in 1996. The station's weekday schedule starts with the John Trout-hosted '' America in the Morning'' newshour followed by Hugh Hewitt. Conservative talk show hosts Wendy Bell (a former Pittsburgh news anchor), Dan Bongino, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and

Dave Ramsey David Lawrence Ramsey III (born September 3, 1960) is an American personal finance personality, radio show host, author, and businessman. An evangelical Christian, he hosts the nationally syndicated radio program ''The Ramsey Show''. Ramsey has ...

are then broadcast, followed by ''The

Jim Bohannon James Everett Bohannon (January 7, 1944 – November 12, 2022) was an American broadcaster who worked in both television and radio. He is best known for hosting the nationally syndicated late night radio talk show ''The Jim Bohannon Show'' orig ...

Show'' and '' Coast to Coast AM''. The station was previously the home of Rush Limbaugh until the host's death. WZFC carries five-minute newscasts every hour from

. The station also has a news department that prepares and broadcasts local news reports. The station is an affiliate of the Virginia Tech IMG Sports Network, which carries

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

. Weekend programming on WZFC includes '' The Kim Komando Show'', home-improvement shows ''In the Garden with Andre Viette'', ''At Home with Gary Sullivan'', and ''On the House with the Carey Brothers''. The station also airs "best of" editions of previously recorded weekday programming and a "best of" edition of

Charlie Kirk Charles J. Kirk (born 1993) is an American conservative activist and radio talk show host. He founded Turning Point USA with Bill Montgomery in 2012, and has served as its executive director since. He is the CEO of Turning Point Action, Stude ...

's program which isn't heard during the weekdays. ''Sunday Night with

Bill Cunningham Bill Cunningham may refer to: People *Bill Cunningham (rugby union) (1874–1927), New Zealand rugby union player *Bill Cunningham (footballer), Irish international footballer active in the 1890s *Bill Cunningham (infielder) (1886–1946), profes ...

'' is also heard.

References, notes and sources

Notes

References

Sources

* *

External links

NewsTalk AM1400 Online
* (covering 1940-1981 as WINC) * {{Sports Radio Stations in Virginia 1941 establishments in Virginia News and talk radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1941 ZFC Sports radio stations in the United States Winchester, Virginia