WWEI (105.5 FM; "SportsRadio 105.5") 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 radi ...

Easthampton, Massachusetts Easthampton is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The city is on the southeastern edge of the Pioneer Valley near the five colleges in the college towns of Northampton and Amherst. The population was 16,211 at the 2020 ...

, serving Springfield with a

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 ...

format. The station is owned by

Audacy, Inc. Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...

Most programming is provided by

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

sister station

WEEI-FM WEEI-FM (93.7 MHz) – branded SportsRadio 93.7 WEEI-FM – is a commercial sports radio station licensed to Lawrence, Massachusetts, serving Greater Boston and much of surrounding New England. Owned by Audacy, Inc., WEEI-FM is the Boston aff ...

History

The 105.5 MHz frequency used by WWEI was originally allocated to

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

, where it signed on in October 1967 as WQRB-FM. It was co-owned with WBEC (1420 AM), though it offered its own programming; this was a middle-of-the-road format by 1972. The station became WBEC-FM in 1979, upon adopting an

album-oriented rock Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM radio format created in the United States in the 1970s that focuses on the full repertoire of rock albums and is currently associated with classic rock. Album-orien ...

format. During the 1980s, the station shifted to more of a contemporary hit radio format. Vox Media acquired the WBEC stations in 2002. Two years later, to accommodate then-sister station WNYQ (now

WQBK-FM WQBK-FM (105.7 MHz "Q105.7/103.5") is a commercial radio station licensed to Malta, New York, and serving the Capital District of New York, including the Albany-Schenectady-Troy radio market. The station is owned by Townsquare Media, and ai ...

)'s move to

Malta, New York Malta is a town in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The town is in the central part of the county and is south of Saratoga Springs. The population was 17,130 as of the 2020 census. Malta, along with Stillwater, is home to the Luther F ...

, Vox filed to move WBEC-FM to Easthampton in 2004. Vox then put the station up for sale, and after an unsuccessful attempt to sell it to

Pamal Broadcasting Pamal Broadcasting, Ltd. is a family-owned radio group with twenty-three stations in medium-to-small markets in the Northeast. Based in the Albany suburb of Latham, New York, Pamal Broadcasting was founded in 1987 as Albany Broadcasting Company, w ...

, it was sold to Entercom in 2006. WBEC-FM signed off from Pittsfield that May, with the format and call letters moving to 95.9 FM (a former frequency of WUPE-FM) at that time. The current incarnation of the station signed on as WVEI-FM from Easthampton on October 26, 2006. The call letters were changed to WWEI on September 14, 2011. On June 13, 2012, it was announced that WWEI would carry

UMass Minutemen football The UMass Minutemen football team represents the University of Massachusetts in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Massachusetts is the fourth oldest program in FBS. The Minutemen compete as an FBS independent. Since 1965, th ...

and

UMass Minutemen basketball The UMass Minutemen basketball team represents the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Amherst, Massachusetts, in NCAA Division I men's college basketball. They play their home games in the William D. Mullins Memorial Center. The Minutemen cur ...

games. In the event of conflicts with

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

and Boston Celtics broadcasts, station manager David Oldread said "his station would prefer to keep UMass as the priority." It is not known yet whether the Celtics or Sox games would air on

WHYN WHYN can refer to: * WHYN (AM), a radio station at 560 AM located in Springfield, Massachusetts * WHYN-FM, a radio station at 93.1 FM located in Springfield, Massachusetts * WGGB-TV, a TV station which formerly carried the WHYN-TV call signs locate ...

(560 AM) during such conflicts. As part of the deal, every Thursday at 7pm, WWEI airs ''The Coaches Show'' hosted by UMass Football analyst Matt Goldstein (with interviews with head UMass Football coach and head UMass Basketball coach) over WEEI programming. Also, every Friday at 7:00 p.m. during Springfield Falcons hockey season, WWEI airs ''The Old Time Hockey Show'', which discusses the Falcons, the

Boston Bruins The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making t ...

, and the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

. WWEI formerly carried Fox Sports Radio in the overnight hours, even after parent station WEEI switched to ESPN Radio in 2009, at that time, ESPN programming was heard in Springfield on WHLL. At midnight on January 1, 2013, WWEI assumed the ESPN Radio affiliation, after WHLL switched to CBS Sports Radio.

2020 signal hijacking

During the 2020 United States Presidential Election, the station's signal was hijacked and interrupted with a whispering voice that said "''Don't be a chump, vote for

Trump Trump most commonly refers to: * Donald Trump (born 1946), 45th president of the United States (2017–2021) * Trump (card games), any playing card given an ad-hoc high rank Trump may also refer to: Businesses and organizations * Donald J. T ...

''." As of November 4, 2020, attempts to contact the FCC was unsuccessful.

References

External links

* * {{Entercom WEI Sports radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1967 1967 establishments in Massachusetts Mass media in Hampshire County, Massachusetts Audacy, Inc. radio stations CBS Sports Radio stations