Whom Glory Still Adores
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

WHOM (94.9 FM, "94.9 HOM") is an American radio station which airs an adult contemporary radio format. WHOM is owned by Townsquare Media and
transmit Transmit is a file transfer client program for macOS. Developed by Panic, Transmit is shareware. After a seven-day trial period, the product can only be used for seven-minute sessions until it has been purchased. Originally built as an FTP client ...
s from atop
Mount Washington Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, ...
in New Hampshire, its community of license. Mount Washington is the tallest peak in the
Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
. WHOM's signal is among the strongest FM signals in the world, and the station can be heard in five states (NH, ME, VT, MA, NY) and one Canadian Province. Under proper conditions, the signal can reach as far East as Acadia National Park in Eastern Maine, as far north as Southern Quebec, as far south as Boston and as far West as the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
. Although the station can be heard over much of Northern New England, WHOM broadcasts from and considers itself part of the
Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
radio market. WHOM claims on its website and on the air that it has the largest coverage area of any FM station in the United States.
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 ...
103.7 WPKQ also broadcasts from atop Mount Washington, but its signal is not as strong as WHOM's. In addition to local DJs, the station also airs the syndicated John Tesh "Intelligence for Your Life" radio show in the evening. From late November to December 25, WHOM switches to an all-
Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject ma ...
format.


History


WMTW-FM

The station that is today WHOM
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 July 9, 1958, as WMTW-FM. But it had an earlier life as a weather relay station from Mount Washington to meteorologists in the Boston area. Along with Channel 8
WMTW-TV WMTW (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Poland Spring, Maine, United States, serving the Portland area as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside CW affiliate WPXT (channel 51). Both stations share studio ...
, which had signed on in 1954, WMTW-FM was owned by Mount Washington Television, an ownership group that included former Maine governor
Horace Hildreth Horace Augustus Hildreth (December 2, 1902 – June 2, 1988) was born in Gardiner, Maine, the son of an attorney. Hildreth attended local schools before graduating from Bowdoin College in the class of 1925 and receiving his LL.B. from Harvard Un ...
. For most of its early years, WMTW-FM broadcast a beautiful music format, featuring quarter-hour sweeps of mostly soft instrumentals, with limited talking and commercials. The WMTW stations were sold to
Jack Paar Jack Harold Paar (May 1, 1918 – January 27, 2004) was an American talk show host, author, radio and television comedian, and film actor. He was the second host of ''The Tonight Show'' from 1957 to 1962. ''Time'' magazine's obituary of Paar repo ...
of '' Tonight Show'' fame in 1963. Jack Paar, in turn, sold WMTW-FM-TV to Mid New York Broadcasting in 1967. In 1971, Mid New York sold WMTW-FM to Alpine Broadcasting while retaining the TV station. With the ownership change, the radio station switched its call letters to WWMT, then to WMTQ in 1973, and then finally to the current WHOM in 1976. That call sign previously was used by New York City radio stations 1480 AM (now WZRC) and 92.3 FM (now WINS-FM). The station offered an easy listening format consisting of instrumental versions of pop songs from artists like Henry Mancini,
Ray Conniff Joseph Raymond Conniff (November 6, 1916 – October 12, 2002) was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s. Biography Conniff was born November 6, 1916 in Attleboro, Massachusetts, United St ...
, Percy Faith, Chet Atkins, and Herb Alpert, as well as several soft vocals per hour like The Carpenters,
Dionne Warwick Marie Dionne Warwick (; born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host. Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on ''Billboards Hot 100 pop singles cha ...
,
Johnny Mathis John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum s ...
, and
Perry Como Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (; May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an Italian-American singer, actor and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, after signing ...
. This format continued through the 1980s.


WHOM

In January 1990, WHOM dropped the easy listening music for a soft adult contemporary format, dubbed "soft and easy favorites" by the station. It continued to market itself as an easy listening station and retained its air staff. In the mid 1990s, the station began adding softer songs by
contemporary hit Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...
artists and began playing current product. By 2000, WHOM was more of a mainstream adult contemporary station. The station was sold to
Fuller-Jeffrey Broadcasting Atlantic Coast Radio, LLC is a radio company located in the state of Maine, owned by longtime broadcaster J. J. Jeffrey. It was incorporated in 1982 and has a staff count of approximately twenty. Prior to the current radio group, Jeffrey was a part ...
by Barnstable Broadcasting in 1996. Fuller-Jeffrey then sold most of its stations, including WHOM, to Citadel Broadcasting in 1999. Citadel merged with Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011.


Sale to Townsquare Media

On August 30, 2013, a deal was announced in which Townsquare Media would acquire 53 Cumulus stations, including WHOM, for $238 million. The deal was part of Cumulus' acquisition of Dial Global; Townsquare and Dial Global are both controlled by Oaktree Capital Management. The sale to Townsquare was completed on November 14, 2013.


References


External links


WHOM Website
{{coord, 44.270, N, 71.304, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title HOM Mainstream adult contemporary radio stations in the United States Townsquare Media radio stations Radio stations established in 1958 Mount Washington (New Hampshire) 1958 establishments in New Hampshire