In August 2014, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment ended the news-talk format on WPGB (104.7 FM) in Pittsburgh and relaunched the station as the country outlet “Big 104.7.” Its syndicated talk lineup, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, moved to WJAS (1320 AM) the same day.
The change came after weeks of speculation. It also fed a wider debate in the radio trade about whether talk was losing ground on the FM dial.
What did Clear Channel change in Pittsburgh?
RadioInsight reported that WPGB flipped to country as “Big 104.7” at 3:00 p.m. on August 7, 2014. Another trade account, the NorthEast Radio Watch year-in-review, places the flip on August 1. The same-day trade posts from August 7 support the later date.
Earlier that afternoon, syndicated talk featuring Limbaugh was simulcast on both stations as the announcement neared. Promotional spots told listeners that this was “moving day.” After the Limbaugh program ended, WJAS took over the news-talk format and WPGB became a country station using Clear Channel’s “Big” branding.
The announcement said Pittsburgh fans of Limbaugh, Hannity, Glenn Beck and the other WPGB talk hosts could hear them on 1320 AM, WJAS, effective immediately. The WJAS lineup also included Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and David “Bloomdaddy” Bloomquist.
On the country side, David Edgar, vice president of programming for Clear Channel Media and Entertainment Pittsburgh, said in the announcement that the station would give listeners a front-row seat to country’s biggest artists and concerts. The station’s morning show was to be The Bobby Bones Show. It began with a stretch of 10,000 consecutive songs without commercials. It would compete with CBS Radio’s WDSY and the Froggy stations owned by Keymarket.
Why was WJAS available for the talk lineup?
WJAS had carried a standards and nostalgia format before the change. It had just changed hands, from Renda to Frank Iorio, according to the NorthEast Radio Watch column. The column had speculated in late July about where the talk hosts might land, and it named WJAS and Clear Channel’s own AM station, WBGG (970), as possible homes. WJAS was owned by a different company than WPGB, so the move put Clear Channel’s syndicated hosts on a station it did not own.
WPGB had been a pioneer of FM talk. It launched the format in 2004. The talk format ran there for about a decade before the 2014 change.
What did the ratings show?
RadioInsight cited Nielsen Audio data for the weeks before the flip. WPGB registered a 2.5 share in the June 2014 PPM ratings, down from a 4.1 as recently as the previous November. RadioInsight tied that November book to a change in the morning lineup. After that book, Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent left mornings, and David “Bloomdaddy” Bloomquist replaced them, syndicated from sister station WWVA in Wheeling.
The NorthEast Radio Watch column noted that Limbaugh’s overall numbers remained stronger than any of his talk competitors. It also listed other stations where Limbaugh’s program had shifted, including KEIB in Los Angeles, where Clear Channel relocated the host from KFI earlier in 2014.
Was Pittsburgh part of a larger pattern?
Trade coverage at the time described the Pittsburgh switch as one chapter in a longer story. NorthEast Radio Watch wrote that a running thread in its column over the previous few years had been the rise and gradual fall of traditional news-talk radio on the FM dial. The column pointed to the Los Angeles move and to changes at other Clear Channel stations as part of that thread.
Other format moves that summer pointed in the same direction. The year-in-review noted that Cumulus’s “Nash” country formats continued their slow expansion that season, with stations in Worcester, Massachusetts, and on Long Island changing formats.
Opinion writers also weighed in. A September 2014 commentary in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a regional daily, attributed the station’s fall to heavy commercial loads. That was one writer’s view and not a finding from ratings or company statements.
Clear Channel’s own announcement of the change focused on the new country brand and the continued availability of the talk hosts on AM. The company did not describe the flip as a retreat from talk programming in the material published that day.
The Pittsburgh change took effect within hours of the announcement. It was a clear example of the choice facing station groups in 2014: keep talk on a strong FM signal, or move it to AM and use the FM frequency for music.