For years, it has long offered a Hot Adult Contemporary format to audiences on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border and from 1987-2000 was WMJQ. Before that, it was WBEN-FM. It has not only formidable coverage of Rochester, N.Y., to the east, but can easily be scanned up on expressways on the northern side of the Greater Toronto Area.
By Saturday morning, this grandfathered 110,000-watt Class B FM will be bringing the Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) noncomm KLOVE network to all of Western New York … and Canada’s biggest population centre.
As RBR+TVBR reported on April 10, Audacy Inc. has agreed to sell WTSS-FM “Star 102.5” in Buffalo to Educational Media Foundation, and it is tied to the sale of another Audacy property, WLFP-FM 94.1 in Germantown, Tenn., serving Memphis.
The $15.5 million deal comes at a fragile financial moment for Audacy, which failed in its GoDaddy.com auction to receive a minimum $2.5 million bid for “Radio.com” and has a 5-cent stock trading on an over-the-counter pink sheet after getting delisted from NYSE before a reverse stock split vote by shareholders at its 2023 annual stockholders’ meeting.
While WLFP’s Country “94.1 The Wolf” intellectual property is shifting to WMC-FM 99.7 — ironically, another grandfathered “superpower” FM with a Class C signal boasting 290,000 watts — and displacing that station’s Hot Adult Contemporary format come Monday, “Star” will be “sunset” as will Memphis’ “FM 100.”
What does the end of “Star” mean for 6am-noon morning man Rob Lucas? At 8:12am Eastern this morning, he shared what he knows as of today. “My heart is now going faster than it did, I think, the first time I ever opened a microphone on WLEA in Hornell [N.Y.] in 1979,” Lucas told listeners. “Tomorrow will be the final day of us as a pop music station.”
The switch from “Star 102.5” will be at 10am. But, it won’t be the official switch to “KLOVE,” Lucas teased. This could mean a retrospective of the previous incarnations of the 102.5 MHz signal could be in store for Western New York listeners and those in the Niagara Region of Ontario.
As far as Lucas is concerned, he noted how well he’s been treated by local management — including the retiring VP/Market Manager Tim Holly and respected veteran Program Director and afternoon host Sue O’Neil. “I was offered the chance to stay in this building, with other positions,” Lucas said. “I could have excelled at those jobs. But, I didn’t feel they were my destiny.” O’Neil will be shifting to WKSS “Kiss 98.5” for an undisclosed shift.
Lucas revealed that he knew as early as February 2023 that a sale of WTSS would be possible. That has given him ample time to prepare, before being told in early April that “Star 102.5” would be going away. Audacy/Buffalo clearly expressed that they wanted to Lucas to guide the station through its last morning show, he added.
Some days have been hard of late, Lucas said, and recalled how he first joined what was WBEN-FM “Rock 102” in 1986. He also choked up when he told listeners how he met his wife at what is today “Star 102.5,” and called WTSS a “center of learning.” For Lucas, as a student, “I’m not that ready to select my next class.” And, he suggested “getting his hands dirty” with a job far from being an air personality is in his thoughts.
In closing, Lucas thanked listeners for letting them be his friend, and for letting him be theirs with an Elton John song.
The end of “Star 102.5” led Audacy to begin airing on-air announcements earlier this week directing listeners to Kiss 98.5. Under EMF ownership, it will become WBKV-FM, moving from 89.9 MHz; that facility will become WBWA-FM and adopt EMF’s Air1 Worship Music noncomm network.
Audacy’s other Buffalo stations include News/Talk WBEN-AM 930; Sports Talk WGR-AM 550; R&B Oldies WWWS-AM with an FM translator at 107.3 MHz; and Country WLKK-FM 107.3 “The Wolf,” with a translator at 104.7 MHz, which possesses a Construction Permit for auxiliary antenna engineer filed in February by Audacy. WLKK’s Wethersfield Township, N.Y., signal makes it a partial-market signal, with limited coverage making it difficult to reach Niagara Falls and Grand Island.
