Cincinnati
WOXY/WAOL - 97.7/99.5 Max FM
First Broadcasting made a sizeable investment to put a new radio station on in Cincinnati. In May 2004, the company bought legendary indie rock station 97.7 WOXY in Oxford, OH for $5.6 million from Doug and Linda Balogh. The Balogh family retained the old 97X name and the massive music library from the station, along with the woxy.com domain; First rebranded the station as X-97.7 and put the Waitt Radio Network's satellite-fed modern rock format on that signal.
In May 2005, First Broadcasting bought Country 97.7 The Rooster WAXZ (97.7) in Georgetown, OH and Classic Country 99.5 WAOL in Ripley, OH in 2005 from Plessinger Radio for $4.1 million.
Over Memorial Day weekend 2005, First Broadcasting flipped all three stations, creating a Variety Hits trimulcast as "Bob FM". But, as it turned out, the "Bob" name didn't last long.
At the time, 1160 WBOB (then owned by Salem) was already an established station in Cincinnati. Whether Salem made any requests or demands about the Bob FM name is unclear, but First Broadcasting quickly decided to go in another direction. At around 9:30 PM on 5/30/2005, the trimulcast dropped the Bob name and went nameless, simply touting that it was a new station playing 10,000 songs in a row without commercial interruption.
First Broadcasting held a "pick the name" contest for the station in July 2005, promising $10,000 to the person who suggested the winning name. On August 1, 2005 at 5 PM EDT, the station unveiled its new name: 97.7/99.5 Max FM.
The three stations covered outlying areas of Cincinnati, but none hit the metro with any type of competitive signal. But, to be sure, First Broadcasting had a long-term plan in place.
In August 2005, the FCC approved a switch of city of licenses for WOXY from Oxford, OH to Mason, OH and WAXZ from Georgetown, OH to Salt Lick, KY. The plan: relocate WAXZ to the Morehead, KY area and move WOXY closer to Cincinnati. Dreamworks Communications' WRCA completed the trifecta by agreeing to lower its power slightly and move west to give city-grade coverage to its new city of license, Georgetown, OH (filling WAXZ's role in providing local coverage there.)
In September 2007, First Broadcasting sold WAXZ to Gateway Radio for just $60,294. The station has been taken dark in preparation for the move to Kentucky, and Max FM is now just a simulcast.
For a look at the broadcast radius of the newly-placed WOXY, here's the info from radio-locator.com.
Station Website: radiomaxfm.com
Streaming Audio: Available via the website
Special Audio: WOXY/WAXZ/WAOL Legal ID (TopHour.com)
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© Copyright 2005-2008 Lou Pickney. All Rights Reserved.
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