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September 1997 to December 1997
By Dave HughesNovember 28, 1997
WKDL, WKDV Jump To Spanish Format
Two Washington area stations that for years broadcast a childrens oriented format switched to Spanish language and music in late November. WKDL, 1050 AM in Silver Spring, and WKDV, 1460 AM in Manassas, made the switch just after being purchased by Mega Broadcasting a major owner of Spanish language stations around the country. WKDL and WKDV had been sporting a childrens format since the early 90s. Before the childrens format programming, WKDL used to be WNTR, a talk station. Meanwhile, WKDV had previously been WPRW, a contemporary then country station before going dark for several years. WKDL and WKDV join several other AM stations in the region broadcasting Spanish language news and music, such as WILC, 900 AM, in Laurel, MD and WMDO, 1540 AM in Wheaton. The Silver Spring station sports a decent daytime power but drops to 44 watts at night, while the Manassas station does have authorization to broadcast at night but hasn't with the childrens format programming. With the new Spanish format, both station do broadcast at night.
October 6, 1997
WCSP Signs On With All-Congress Format
On October 6, Washington got its newest public affairs station, WCSP, 90.1 FM. The station is a non-commercial operation owned by the cable TV network, C-SPAN, which provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House and Senate to cable systems across the country. Press reports indicate that WCSP will, at first, simulcast the audio side of programs from C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2, which includes a healthy dose of public affairs call-in/talk programs. Eventually, the radio service will do its own programming, obviously with a political flavor. We hope that WCSP will explore the possibility of simulcasting some quality foreign broadcasters, such as the BBC World Service, particularly during overnight hours. The 90.1 frequency has had a long history. For the past 15 years or so, it was the home of WDCU, a jazz station operated by the University Of The District Of Columbia. With the financial troubles plaguing many public DC institutions these days, the station was put up for sale earlier this year. It signed off in mid-September. DC lost a valuable source of jazz music with the loss of WDCU; however, two other outlets, Pacifica's WPFW (89.3 FM) still devotes a good portion of its programming to jazz, as well as WJZW (105.9 FM) which broadcasts a variation of "elevator music" that could loosely be construed as jazz. Before being WDCU, 90.1 was WGTB, the progressive rock voice of Georgetown University.
September 20, 1997
WWGB Signs On With Gospel Format
The DC area got a new gospel station during September. It's WWGB a 50,000 watt operation on 1030 AM from Indian Head, Maryland, about 20 miles south of the District. The station had been off the air for the better part of a year. Before it left the air it had been hosting an ethnic format of largely Arabic language programming. That programming has since moved to WNTL, 700 AM, from a transmitter in Frederick County, Maryland, about 35 miles northwest of the District. WWGB joins a host of other area AMers broadcasting variations of the gospel format, including CBS Radio's WPGC, 1580 AM, which like WWGB, is a 50,000 watt daytime operation.
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