WPNO (1450 AM) is a

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 serve

South Paris, Maine South Paris is a census-designated place (CDP) located within the town of Paris in Oxford County, Maine, in the United States. The population was 2,237 at the 2000 census. While the CDP refers only to the densely settled area in the southern p ...

. The station is owned by Bennett Radio Group. WPNO airs a

conservative talk Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and other countries devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio. The definition of conservative talk is generally broad enough ...

format simulcast with WEZR (780 AM) and W252DS (98.3 FM) in Rumford. WPNO also operates

translator station A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

W245CQ (96.9 FM) in South Paris. WPNO went on the air in 1955 as WKTQ, and was assigned its present call letters on September 26, 2019.

History

WPNO signed on October 28, 1955 as WKTQ under the ownership of Oxford Broadcasting Corporation. In its early years, WKTQ's programming included news, music, and sports. The station affiliated with the

Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...

in June 1965, and switched to ABC Radio's

Entertainment network Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousand ...

in 1972. By this point, WKTQ had a variety format that included 42 hours a week of

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, ...

. The call letters were changed to WKTP in 1973. Richard Gleason, owner of WOXO (92.7 FM) in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, bought WKTP for $130,000 in 1976 and changed its call letters to WXIV. The station had a country music format at the time; by 1977, WXIV had changed to a

top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...

format, with 80 percent of the programming simulcast on WOXO. WXIV's call letters were changed to WOXO on November 23, 1981; the station continued to simulcast with WOXO-FM, which changed to a country music format that year. Later in the 1980s, the station shifted to

religious Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...

programming; this programming was simulcast on WTME (1530 AM) in

Auburn Auburn may refer to: Places Australia * Auburn, New South Wales * City of Auburn, the local government area *Electoral district of Auburn *Auburn, Queensland, a locality in the Western Downs Region *Auburn, South Australia *Auburn, Tasmania *Aub ...

, which Gleason purchased in 1985. The call letters were changed back to WKTQ on January 15, 1986. The simulcast on WTME moved to 1240 AM in Lewiston in 1990, after Gleason acquired that facility and shut down the 1530 AM transmitter. WLLB (790 AM) in Rumford began simulcasting WKTQ and WTME in 2001, following Gleason's purchase of that station; later that year, WLLB took the WTME call letters from 1240 (which became WCNM and, in 2007, WEZR) and moved to 780 AM. WKTQ returned to the WOXO call letters on August 1, 2016; at that time, the station began to simulcast on W245CQ (96.9 FM) and took on the country music format previously heard on WOXO-FM, which changed its call letters to WEZR-FM and began simulcasting WEZR's

hot 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, quiet ...

format. WOXO and W245CQ concurrently inherited the existing simulcast of the country format on WTBM (100.7 FM) in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, which took on the WOXO-FM call sign. In April 2019, WOXO and W245CQ split from the simulcast with WOXO-FM and began simulcasting the hot adult contemporary format of WEZR under the "Z105.5 & 96.9" branding; the country music format concurrently moved back to WEZR-FM. The call sign became WPNO on September 26, 2019. WPNO, along with its sister stations, went off the air March 29, 2020, citing financial considerations that included expected reduction in advertising revenue attributed to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The stations had been up for sale following the death of owner Dick Gleason in February 2019. A sale of the Gleason Media Group stations to Bennett Radio Group was announced in May 2020. Bennett Radio Group's purchase, at a price of $300,000, was consummated on August 5, 2020. On August 19, 2020, WPNO, along with WEZR and the former WTME, returned to the airwaves with a relaunched Hot AC format, branded as "WIGY". The format would later shift to

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 ...

with the brand "105.5 and 96.9 WIGY". On October 26, 2021, WPNO and W245CQ, along with WEZR and its translator, flipped to

as "The Patriot", effectively splitting from its simulcast of WIGY after two years.Patriot Debuts In Maine
Lance Venta, Radio Insight, October 26, 2021.

Translator

References

External links

* ** ** {{Lewiston-Auburn Radio PNO Conservative talk radio Paris, Maine Radio stations established in 1955 1955 establishments in Maine Talk radio stations in the United States