ONEIDA — After nearly 7 years of identifying as “The Wave” with “pop rock favorites,” there’s been a format change at WMCR. Thanks to an observant CNYRadio.com reader for pointing out that the station is now playing classic country.
Your editor was out of town when the tip arrived, but once back in the area, a brief tune-in at 101.1FM and 1600AM verified the station was, indeed, playing classic country. For example, we heard “Forever and Ever, Amen” by Randy Travis, from 1987.
There was no imaging or fanfare of station’s new branding while CNYRadio sampled the station, but the last song of the 6pm hour on Thursday ended right on time for the station to pick up the nationally-syndicated “SRN News” feed at 7pm. After the news, a holdover from the old format: John Tesh’s syndicated “Intelligence for Your Life” program, but with the station’s “new” country playlist rather than the previous adult contemporary fare.
WMCR (AM) has been locally-owned since it originally signed-on in 1956. The current owner, since 2017, is Towercast Media, LLC, based in Skaneateles. As the original 106.3 WMCR-FM didn’t come with the sale (it had previously been sold to a religious broadcaster), Towercast added FM translator W266DJ after taking over.
On Thursday, CNYRadio.com reached out to Letitia English, listed as owner of Towercast on the FCC website, hoping to gather more details about the format change, but after four days, we have not received a response. (If we do hear back, we’ll update the story.)
The station’s Facebook page is still titled as “WMCR The Wave 101.1” but the old “Wave” logo profile and cover photos were replaced on April 18. The most-recent Facebook post before that was in 2004. The station’s website predominantly featured RSS news feeds as of last week, but as of this writing on Monday evening, it’s just showing an error message.
Although the station and its FM translator are both licensed to Oneida, the station’s FCC Public File indicates the main studio is located in North Syracuse.
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