New Canton Country Radio

Clear Channel’s latest local HD2-to-FM translator project returns a format to one Northeast Ohio community.

“99.7 Canton’s New Country” launched Friday at 2 PM. Our content partners at RadioInsight had first word, as Life Intervened for your Primary Editorial Voice(tm).

RadioInsight’s Lance Venta has details of the new station’s on air lineup:

W259BW is launching commercial-free until June and featuring a Premium Choice lineup that includes Billy Greenwood, Joe Boxer and Michael J. Mornings are listed as coming soon and will likely feature the syndicated Bobby Bones.

W259BW is the 250-watt Canton translator at 99.7, which is repeating the feed of WHOF/101.7 HD2 North Canton… much like Clear Channel’s alt-rock “99X” in Cleveland repeats the “main” feed of WMMS/100.7 HD2 on translator W256BT/99.1.

W259BW is transmitting from the same facility that puts out WHOF and brother rock WRQK/106.9 at 22nd and Whipple, only with much less wattage. The signal basically covers only the immediate Canton area, and is but a rumor north of the Akron-Canton Airport.

“Canton’s New Country” will also be heard, as “99X” is, via Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio platform.

Oh, and we can officially confirm that the station is “thrilled to add” syndicated country talent Bobby Bones in morning drive, once its commercial free run ends in June.

If one wants to find country music on the radio in Canton, there certainly is no lack of choice.

Among your options for the format in Canton: Rubber City Radio’s WQMX/94.9 from Akron, Dix Communications’ WQKT/104.5 Wooster, WTUZ/99.9 Uhrichsville “Z-Country” in the Dover/New Philadelphia area, and even 99.7’s sibling station in Cleveland, WGAR/99.5. Both WTUZ and WGAR are just one dial position away from the new station.

But a station from the Youngstown market has long ruled the country roost in Canton.

Flamethrower WQXK/105.1 Salem “K105” is still heard in tooth fillings all over Stark County and beyond.

But after Cumulus sold Canton rocker WRQK to Clear Channel, and since both stations abandoned the Canton building on Martindale Road (K105 had a sales office there), the Mighty K105 has basically decamped to its Youngstown base…as the crown jewel at Cumulus’ Youngstown Radio Center.

(We were told after WRQK and K105 left Martindale that WQXK had a new Canton area sales office, but we don’t know if that’s still the case. We do know that K105 hasn’t abandoned selling in the Canton market, not by a long shot.)

To that end, the official 99.7 press release quotes long-time OMW reader Keith Kennedy:

In between today’s biggest country songs, 99.7 Canton’s New Country will focus on Canton content. “There has not been a Canton focused country station since 1999. Now Stark County listeners have a choice with a station talking about events in the Canton area, not Akron or Youngstown” said Keith Kennedy, Regional Programming Manager for Clear Channel.

And Keith himself is very familiar with the last effort to directly target the Canton market with a country format.

That was WNPQ/95.9 New Philadelphia’s turn as “Canton Country”, which ended in 1999 as the station turned to its current Christian format – it’s now CCM “95.9 The Light” under the long-time ownership of Tuscarawas Broadcasting’s Jim Natoli.

And “Canton Country” counted one Keith Kennedy on its airstaff, before he left in 1998 to come to WKDD – then at 96.5 FM…