WOFX (AM) - History

History

From the station's signon in 1940 until 2000, the station was known as WTRY which made an early splash by taking the CBS affiliation from WOKO. When WROW took the CBS affiliation in 1954, they briefly were the ABC affiliate before WPTR took that affiliation several years later. In the early 1960s, the station took a Top 40 format (which gained a simulcast on 106.5 MHz, now classic rock WPYX, briefly in the early 1970s), which they maintained in some form until the early 1980s when it went through a long-term evolution which resulted in the station becoming oldies in 1986. In 1992, WTRY gained a simulcast on 98.3 FM which they lost in 1994, then regained in a mutual arrangement two years later in which the FM became primary and the AM secondary with the AM splitting for alternate programming at points. WTRY went through several ownership changes: The station's original owner was Tri-City Radio, Inc.; in 1965, the station was acquired by Kops-Monahan Communications. In 1972, WTRY-AM and WTRY-FM (today's WPYX) were sold to Scott Broadcasting of Pennsylvania, Inc. In 1985, television personality Merv Griffin through his company Merv Griffin Enterprises brought the stations and then sold it to Capstar Broadcasting (which was controlled by billionaire mogul Tom Hicks) in 1994. In 1999, Capstar merged with another Hicks-owned company Chancellor Media Corporation to form AM-FM Inc.

After the merger of AM-FM and Clear Channel in 2000, the WTRY stations were permanently split with the AM flipping to sports and becoming WOFX while the oldies format stayed on the FM side. In its 60 years as WTRY, it gave birth or adopted three other stations at varying times: WTRI-FM 102.7 (in the early 1950s, went silent), WTRI-TV (1954–1959; now WNYT), and WTRY-FM 106.5 (now WPYX).

On September 20, 2010, with the flip of WHRL to a simulcast of talk radio WGY, WOFX's programming can now be heard on WGY-FM's HD2 channel.