SYRACUSE -- Get ready for some call letter changes coming next week to several stations, all following Foxfur Communications' launch of "New Country Wolf 105-1" earlier this afternoon. As you may have guessed, the country station will inherit the WOLF-FM calls, and the chain reaction continues from there.
New at 12:10pm on 8/29 - The station has a temporary website set up at wolf1051.com.
According to Foxfur co-owner Sam Furco, here's where everything is headed:
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Furco also let us in on some of the long-term plans for Wolf 105.1. He says "we will be jockless for a month or two as we search for morning, midday and afternoon" personalities. According to an article in the Syracuse Post-Standard, the station will also run commercial free for a short time.
Still no official word, press release or anything else from Clear Channel about their decision to quickly flip urban "Power 106.9" (WPHR) over to "Young Country 106.9" late this afternoon, less than two hours after "Wolf" debuted at 4pm. We're guessing WPHR will be changing call letters as well, but listening for a few solid hours this evening, we haven't been able to catch any top-of-hour legal IDs.
So now we have at least four Country stations you can hear in Syracuse. (WFRG 104.3 comes in pretty good in most of the market). Do we really need four? I do miss the vintage country format that WSCP carried, but these new offerings both seem to be the polar opposite of that. Clear Channel adding a station that potentially cannibalizes listeners from it's own market leader also makes no sense to me. Is WOLF such a potential threat to CC's ad revenue that their idea is to drive everyone's ratings into the toilet?