WLKZ is an American licensed radio station in

Wolfeboro, New Hampshire Wolfeboro is a town in Carroll County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 6,416 at the 2020 census. A resort area situated beside Lake Winnipesaukee, Wolfeboro includes the village of Wolfeboro Falls. History The town was granted ...

, serving the Lakes Region. The station is owned by Dirk Nadon, through licensee Lakes Media, LLC, and carries a

classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...

format, under the "104.9 The Hawk" branding.

History

The original construction permit for the station was granted on July 1, 1983, and the WLKZ call letters were assigned on October 11; it took to the air on February 1, 1985, and a license to cover was granted on June 4, 1985. WLKZ former logo (1996-2001)

During the 1980s, WLKZ offered 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 listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

format; by 1996, it was offering an

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as ...

format. Initially, the station aired the format on its own; however, in 2000, original owner Jay Williams sold the station to Tele-Media, owner of similarly-formatted

WNNH WNNH (99.1 FM; "99.1 The Bone") is a commercial radio station owned by Binnie Media. WNNH is licensed to Henniker, New Hampshire, and serves the Concord-Manchester area. Its transmitter is on Watchtower Road in Hopkinton and its studios and ...

in the nearby

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

market. Tele-Media sold WLKZ, WNNH, and WHOB (now

WFNQ WFNQ (106.3 FM; "Frank FM") is a radio station in Nashua, New Hampshire, serving the Manchester area with a hot adult contemporary radio format. It is owned by Binnie Media. The station's studios are located on Church Street in Concord, and i ...

) to

Nassau Broadcasting Partners Nassau Broadcasting Partners LP was a company based in Princeton, New Jersey that owned radio stations in New England and the Mid-Atlantic United States. Nassau's stations, which included both AM and FM frequencies, were located in Maryland, New J ...

in 2004. Nevertheless, the station continued to be programmed and branded separately from WNNH until 2007, when Nassau consolidated the two stations into a simulcast. That December, the stations shifted to Nassau's

Frank FM Frank FM is the branding used by WBIN Media for its radio stations airing a classic hits radio format. The Frank FM format is similar to the Jack FM format in that these stations play around 1000 songs in regular rotation at any time as opposed t ...

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 1980 ...

format as a result of an unsuccessful attempt to convert WWHQ and WWHK (the then-homes for the "Hawk" classic rock format) to

sports radio Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on ...

programming from WEEI. After a corporate reorganization required Nassau to spin off WWHQ and WNNH, WLKZ discontinued the simulcast with WNNH, and dropped classic hits in favor of WWHQ's prior classic rock format on November 4, 2009. WLKZ, along with 29 other Nassau stations in northern New England, was purchased at bankruptcy auction by Carlisle Capital Corporation, a company controlled by Bill Binnie (owner of WBIN-TV in Derry), on May 22, 2012. The station, and 12 of the other stations, were then acquired by Vertical Capital Partners, controlled by Jeff Shapiro. (updated May 23, 2012) The deal was completed on November 30, 2012. The Vertical Capital Partners stations were transferred to Shapiro's existing Great Eastern Radio group on January 1, 2013. Effective August 1, 2017, Great Eastern Radio sold WLKZ,

WTPL WTPL (107.7 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a news/talk format. Licensed to Hillsborough, New Hampshire, United States, it serves the Manchester and Concord areas. The station is owned by Bill Binnie's Binnie Media, through licensee WBIN Med ...

, and WZEI to Dirk Nadon's Lakes Media, LLC for $2.6 million.

References

External links

Station website
* {{Classic Rock Radio Stations in New Hampshire LKZ Classic rock radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1985 Carroll County, New Hampshire 1985 establishments in New Hampshire