There’s likely significance in the first song played on Connoisseur’s new 103.1 The Wolf Long Island, N.Y., which switched from WBZO (103.1 Max FM) after more than 30 years as an Oldies/Classic Hits/Adult Hits/Classic Rock station in some form. “How Country Feels” was the first song played on the former WNSH (Nash-FM/Country 94.7) New York when it went Country nine years ago.
WNSH became Classic R&B/Hip-Hop WXBK (The Block) in November 2021, sending the Country format to an HD-2 channel, and returning the area’s Country franchises to WKMK Monmouth/Ocean, N.J., and Eastern Long Island’s WJVC (My Country 96.1), which has found its own niche in the format as one of Country’s most aggressive new-music outlets.
The new station, pending call letters WWWF, is more centrally located. While there’s less concern these days about whether a given market has a particular format, the loss of WNSH also hurt Country’s national ratings share, given the percentage of the format’s AQH that typically comes from the biggest markets. The new station has the ability to put at least some of that listening back on the board.
Connoisseur’s change helps diversify a wall of gold-based Long Island formats covering a lot of the same musical turf, but not quite the same signal area, including Soft AC WKJY (K-Joy) and ‘60s/’70s Oldies WHLI.
The new station signed on jockless, but has something not heard much on new station launches these days, a listener comment line. Here’s “your fur-flying, fun-loving Wolf” at 2 p.m. on its first day, March 20:
- Carrie Underwood, “Blown Away”
- Nate Smith, “World on Fire”
- Russell Dickerson, “God Gave Me a Girl”
- Jason Aldean, “She’s Country”
- Kenny Chesney, “Take Her Home”
- George Birge, “Mind on You”
- Jon Pardi, “Head Over Boots”
- Morgan Wallen f/Eric Church, “Man Made a Bar”
- Dustin Lynch, “Ridin’ Roads”
- Tyler Hubbard, “Dancin’ in the Country”
- Parker McCollum, “Handle on You”
- Scotty McCreery, “Cab in a Solo”
- Darius Rucker, “Beers and Sunshine”
- Jelly Roll f/Lainey Wilson, “Save Me”
- Brooks & Dunn, “My Maria”
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com