WAOB-FM - History

History

WAOB's history began as WAMO-FM, which signed on in 1960 at 105.9 and had the most powerful signal coverage in western Pennsylvania. It also had various formats during its early years as well, which also included AOR, Disco, and Rhythmic Contemporary Hits. However, they had better success with its Urban Contemporary direction. In 1974, WAMO-FM and WAMO began separate programming. WAMO aired gospel programming aired on Monday through Friday, and on weekends its simulcasted WAMO-FM. WAMO-FM was formatted as an Urban contemporary station with gospel programming on Sunday.

In 1996, that all changed when Sheridan swapped signals with WXDX-FM and moved to the 106.7 frequency. It also simulcasted its format with WSSZ to cover the eastern part of the metro. In 1998, the 106.7 frequency was assigned WXDX, which is now assigned to 105.9. In 2004, WAMO was listenable again throughout the area thanks in part to a transmitter move, while WSSZ shifted to Urban Adult Contemporary and became WJJJ-FM, "Majic 107.1". Also in 2004, the station changed its longtime on-air brand from "106 Jamz, WAMO" to "106.7 WAMO, Pittsburgh's #1 for Hip Hop and R&B".

On May 15, 2009, Sheridan announced that it has sold WAMO, WAMO-FM and WPGR-AM to St. Joseph Missions for 8.9 Million dollars. The deal has been approved by the FCC, and the stations will all flip to a religious format by February 2010. All 35 employees were let go after the sale closed, leaving Pittsburgh without an Urban formatted outlet. In addition, the call letters were changed to WAOB upon the transfer of ownership.

The news of this sale has attracted a lot of attention, especially involving the sale of the station and the reaction from listeners, who will be left with no options in the market. However, due to the high ratings WAMO-FM had with its urban format, it was assumed another station in Pittsburgh will switch to Urban to take advantage of the newly available audience. Some had hoped that WOGI would've picked up the Urban format because its signal (98.3) was ripe for targeting WAMO's audience, but instead Keymarket sold the station to Educational Media Foundation, who replaced WOGI's Country format with its K-Love Christian contemporary brand.

At 6:07PM EST on Tuesday, September 8, 2009, WAMO-FM discontinued broadcasting. Its last song was Boyz II Men's It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday, and then silence. Since then, other outlets began adding some form of Urban or R&B programming into the mix, as AC outlet WLTJ launched a nighttime Adult R&B program called "Q after Dark" aimed at a 25-54 audience in the same month. In addition, the hiphop & R&B playlist was largely increased on Clear Channel's WKST-FM (96.1 Kiss FM), a top 40 station that had been moving towards a rhythmic top 40 direction, but with Mainstream top 40 rival WBZW (B94) switching to Sports Talk, this once again leaves Pittsburgh without any fulltime R&B/Hip-Hop or Urban outlet as WKST has toned down the Rhythmic content.

This would be followed in October 2009 by Eddie Edwards, the one-time owner of then independent television outlet WPTT, announcing that he was in the process of acquiring AM outlet WPYT, a station with good daytime coverage but not so good coverage at night. Edwards hoped that he could fill the Urban void with this new outlet (in actuality the format would've be Urban Talk, targeting 25-54 African-Americans in the Pittsburgh metro), which pending FCC approval, would've started in February 2010. However on November 3, 2009 it was announced that those plans have fallen through after his son, Eddie Edwards Jr., confirmed that the senior Edwards withdrew the application due to health problems and was hospitalized under a doctor's care.

The station returned to the air on February 15, 2010 with a live broadcast of a Catholic Mass. After its conclusion, the station announced that WAOB will begin regular programming on March 19, with only Mass broadcasts being carried in the interim.