SYRACUSE -- New call letters are in effect today for Citadel's AM 1260. According to Operations Manager Tom Mitchell, the former WNSS is now officially identified as WSKO. The new calls fit in with the station's new branding, as "The Score 1260."
The change comes two days after Citadel announced the new branding for 1260, which will soon lose its ESPN Radio affiliation to a simulcast on WTLA, WSGO and two FM translators, all owned by crosstown competitor Galaxy Communications. When we listened for a bit on Wednesday afternoon, some of the pre-recorded liners had been overhauled with "The Score" and some still included the "ESPN Radio" branding.
You may recall the WNSS call letters had been first installed on the 1260 frequency in 1989 (according to Wikipedia) when the station was branded as "W-News," a non-stop news format that once simulcast the audio from select newscasts from NBC affiliate WSTM-TV. The WNSS calls stayed in place during the station's stint as an affiliate of the now-defunct "Comedy World" network, and later to the ESPN Radio network.
Mitchell also confirms to CNYRadio.com that the existing WLTI calls in place on Lite Rock 105.9 will be changing to go along with its upcoming format change to "105.9 The Big Talker." The format change is expected next week, but Mitchell couldn't yet provide an exact date for the new call letters -- or what the calls will be. We'll keep you posted.
More for your history corner: a coincidence relating to the WNSS call letters is that they were first showed up in the market in the early '90's on AM1200, the station that (reinforced by FM translators) is taking away the ESPN affiliation from 1260. AM1200 was running the satellite feed of the CNN Headline News audio and they adopted WNSS in order to be "W-NEWS." After this format was dropped, the call letters were changed to something else. Several years later, 1260 switched to news and they adopted the WNSS/W-NEWS identity for their news format. In addition to the channel 3 audio that you mentioned, they also ran CBS Radio news on the hour and the AP Radio 24/7 feed the rest of the time.
I looked up the chronology of the call letter switches on the FCC website. It says that AM 1200 was WNSS from August '91 to October '93, and 1260 became WNSS in March '96.