OMW is hearing that some changes on the radio dial are about to take place on Clear Channel radio stations in the Findlay and Lima areas.
It starts with a brief official announcement on the website of Findlay-based classic rocker WFPX/107.7 North Baltimore OH “107.7 The Fox”:
“Catch us on the dial at 106.3 on Monday!”
That’s all it says.
106.3 in the region is currently oldies WBUK/106.3 Ottawa OH “The Big Buck”, which pumps out mostly satellite-fed oldies…and is headquartered at Clear Channel in Lima.
“The Fox” targets Findlay from its location just east of that western Ohio city, and “The Big Buck” is a class A rimshot that touches both Findlay and Lima on the fringes of its signal coming out of a tower between those cities.
Clear Channel Findlay/Tiffin recently advertised to hire a program director for a new adult contemporary outlet in their cluster.
Add that with this new website an OMW reader in the region pointed out for “My 107.7” – a virtual clone of the “look and feel” of sister Canton market AC outlet WHOF/101.7 North Canton “My 101.7” – and the pieces seem to fit together for changes as soon as Monday.
We’d expect the new “My 107.7” AC format to displace “The Fox” classic rock format on that frequency. A brief click of the site’s “Listen Live” link would seem to confirm that…it brings up an error message tagged with the WPFX call letters.
In turn, the above announcement would place “The Fox” on 106.3 Ottawa, and unless Clear Channel Lima is making more changes to keep the oldies format going down there, “The Big Buck” would appear to be heading out.
None of this is confirmed by sources in the Findlay or Lima regions, by the way, aside from the above announcement of “The Fox’s” format being heard on 106.3 on Monday.
That announcement is brief, and for all we know, “The Fox” will simulcast until the presumed AC format on 107.7 is ready. The wording on the WPFX website doesn’t make it clear.
All of these stations are still in the Clear Channel fold, with the various changes to the company seemingly on hold.
The plan to take CC private in the hands of two private equity funds hasn’t closed yet, and the once-proposed mass sale of small market stations ran into problems as well.
CC has managed to sell off some groups (Ashtabula, etc.), but with “GoodRadio” out of the picture as a large buyer of many of CC’s small market clusters, the effort to sell the remaining groups targeted in Ohio and other states is going slowly. Some of these stations (including WBUK) were tabbed to go into the “Aloha Station Trust”, but that hasn’t happened yet, either.
So, for now, all of this is still in Clear Channel’s court.
But, a question…if, for example, sales split the Lima and Findlay/Tiffin clusters to different companies…what happens, then? We’ll just have to wait and see…
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