WDIG (AM)

Coordinates: 40°26′49.00″N 80°34′6.00″W / 40.4469444°N 80.5683333°W / 40.4469444; -80.5683333

WDIG (950 AM, "Magic 95") is a radio station broadcasting an urban adult contemporary music format.^[2] Licensed to Steubenville, Ohio, USA, it serves the Wheeling, West Virginia, area. The station is currently owned by World Witness For Christ Ministries, Inc. WDIG operates at the assigned frequency of 950 kHz, with a power output of 1,000 watts day, and 35 watts at night. The station broadcasts using a four-tower directional antenna system with changing patterns, day and night. Programming comes from Citadel Media's satellite-delivered Urban AC format, The Touch.

History

Beginnings as WLIT

This station first signed on the air as WLIT back in 1973, and was the last AM station to come on the air in the Steubenville market. Contemporary Communications, Inc., sold WLIT to Frederick J. Staffilino in June 1982.^[3]

Steubenville, like Pittsburgh and Wheeling, the larger cities surrounding it, fell economically due to the collapse of the steel industry in the early 1980s. The steel industry supported much of the retail industry, which radio depends upon for its survival. After the collapse, many local stations in the area were in a fight for survival. WLIT was no exception to this, and despite hard times, managed to forge ahead and struggle through the 1980s.

Change to WDIG

The station's call sign was changed to WDIG in January 1987^[1] and the station adopted an oldies format, delivered via satellite through the "Pure Gold" 1960s and 1970s oldies format delivered through the Satellite Music Network. The call letters were a play on words for "DIG", the popular youth slang term of the 1960s to reflect the new sound.

Financial troubles forced the station's ownership into bankruptcy in February 1989,^[4] pushing them to seek refinancing or a new buyer. In March 1989, an agreement was reached to transfer WDIG to Romano R. Cironi, Sr.^[5] The sale was consummated on June 9, 1989.^[5]

However, in the early-1990s, the station began to have much more serious problems, as two oldies-formatted FM stations began to dominate the landscape. WJPA in Washington, Pennsylvania, switched to oldies and embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign to attract new listeners. A new adult contemporary FM station, WWYS, had been launched in Cadiz, Ohio, at 106.3 back in 1990. It too switched to oldies and now with the FM competition, WDIG found itself fighting for its survival, but the fight proved futile, as the station fell briefly silent.

Rebirth

WDIG returned to the air with a new gospel music format after the station was purchased from Cironi by World Witness For Christ Ministries in November 1991.^[6] Time on the station was leased under a local marketing agreement by Pittsburgh urban radio programmer and manager Del King, who had leased an AM station in Pittsburgh trying to launch his adult urban contemporary format, but the lease deal ended in the early-1990s.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WDIG
• Radio-Locator Information on WDIG
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WDIG