WKSW, the last commercial station broadcasting from Springfield, left the 101.7 frequency at 1:01 p.m. and became Click 101.5 — a modern-rock station broadcasting from Kettering.
With its studio on Derr Road and tower in Champaign County, Kiss Country promoted itself as the station most in tune with Clark and Champaign counties.
“No more high school football. No more Colgate Country Showdown,” said Andy Lawrence, the Kiss Country morning host who started at the station in 1992 as a high school student answering phones on the request show.
Lawrence, who also served as promotions director, will move into a sales job for all five of the Dayton stations owned by Pennsylvania-based Main Line Broadcasting.
Other local personalities, like Kiss Country program director Lee Riley, won’t be so lucky.
“Lee is no longer with the company,” said Brad Waldo, program director for Main Line’s Fly 92.9.
It’s no secret that Kiss Country wanted to compete more aggressively with stations in Dayton.
“We’ve always known we were moving to a new frequency,” Lawrence said. “The idea was for us to be country, but the research showed different.”
WKSW now is licensed to Enon, but that’s the extent of its presence in Clark County.
“It was my understanding,” Waldo said, “that once the city of license was changed, they were going to move the studio in with all the radio stations.”
The only remaining stations broadcasting from Springfield are WEEC, a nonprofit Christian station, and WUSO, Wittenberg University’s student station.
Contact this reporter at amcginn@coxohio.com.
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