WQSO (96.7 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Rochester, New Hampshire, United States. The station is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. and airs a news/talk

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 ...

serving the Portsmouth-

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

-Rochester media market which also includes part of Southern Maine. The transmitter is on Rochester Hill Road ( New Hampshire Route 108) in Rochester. It has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 3,000 watts. WQSO broadcasts in the

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...

hybrid format. The HD2 subchannel carries an adult hits format known as "The River."

Programming

Nearly all programming heard on WQSO comes from

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 ...

WGIR in Manchester, New Hampshire. WQSO separates from WGIR for its own local commercials and some weekend paid brokered programming. Weekdays begin with a news and interview show, ''New Hampshire Today'', hosted by Chris Ryan, also heard on several other stations in the state. The rest of the schedule consists of

nationally syndicated Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States wher ...

shows, including '' The Glenn Beck Program'', ''

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show ''The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show'' is an American radio program hosted by former Fox Sports Radio personality Clay Travis and former '' America Now/The Buck Sexton Show'' host Buck Sexton. It is broadcast on over 400 talk radio stations n ...

'', '' The Sean Hannity Show'', '' The Dave Ramsey Show'', ''Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis'', '' Coast to Coast AM with George Noory'' and '' This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal''. Weekend feature programs on money, health, law, technology and the ''Paul Parent Garden Club'', as well as best-of editions of weekday programming. Some weekend shows are paid brokered programming. Syndicated weekend shows include ''The Tech Guy with Leo Laporte'', ''Sunday Night Live 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 ...

'' and ''Somewhere in Time with

Art Bell Arthur William Bell III (June 17, 1945 – April 13, 2018) was an American broadcaster and author. He was the founder and the original host of the paranormal-themed radio program ''Coast to Coast AM'', which is syndicated on hundreds of ...

''. Most hours begin with world and national 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, ...

, followed by New Hampshire news from local reporters. WQSO is co-flagship of the

Wildcat Sports Network The UNH Wildcat Sports Radio Network is an American radio network that carries New Hampshire Wildcats sports, the athletic division of the University of New Hampshire. Sports coverage *Football * Men's and women's Basketball * Men's and women's ...

along with

s 930 WPKX and 610 WGIR. The network airs

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

, hockey and basketball from the University of New Hampshire.

History

On October 29, 1979, the station

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 ...

as WWNH-FM. It changed its call sign to WXKZ in 1983, to WCYT in 1986, to WKOS-FM on December 18, 1987, to WWEM on December 17, 1990. In March 1994, the station adjusted its format slightly from adult contemporary to "The Perfect Mix of Soft Rock", playing

soft rock Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...

and Americana music. The call sign was changed to WSRI on April 3, 1995, coinciding with a format flip to adult album alternative. The call letters were then changed to WQSO on September 29, 1997, coinciding with a format flip to oldies, mirroring

WQSR in Baltimore, also owned by American Radio Systems at that time. In the two weeks prior, the station had

stunted Stunted growth is a reduced growth rate in human development. It is a primary manifestation of malnutrition (or more precisely undernutrition) and recurrent infections, such as diarrhea and helminthiasis, in early childhood and even before birth, ...

by simulcasting its sister stations in Boston at different times of the day. The following spring, the stations of Precision Media were sold to Capstar Broadcasting. On April 1, 2009, Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) flipped WQSO from oldies to talk radio while keeping the “Wave” name. Most programs heard on WQSO were previously heard on WGIP in Exeter, New Hampshire (a simulcast of WGIR in Manchester) before it was spun off by Clear Channel and the call letters were switched to WXEX. On February 27, 2013, WQSO was rebranded as "News Radio 96.7" and began carrying a nearly identical schedule to WGIR. File:WQSO-logo.png, Previous logo as Classic Hits format File:WQSO logo.png, Previous logo as 96.7 The Wave

References

External links

* {{IHeartMedia QSO Radio stations established in 1979 Rochester, New Hampshire News and talk radio stations in the United States 1979 establishments in New Hampshire IHeartMedia radio stations