Stephen King’s (yes that one) 620 WZON Bangor ME has dropped its Liberal Talk “The Pulse” format for Oldies “Z62“.
The move marks a return to the branding the station used in its Top 40 and Rock eras in the 1970s and 80s. The new format will focus on hits of the 60s and 70s, just as WZON has been running on its “Z62 Throwback Weekends”.
Local morning host Don Cookson will move to sister Classic Rock 100.3WKIT-FM for middays, while the afternoon show “Downtown with Rich Kimball” remains in place from 4-6pm as will the WABI-TV newscast simulcasts from 430-6am and 6-630pm. Out with the change are the syndicated Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann shows in daytime and Leslie Marshall, Devils Advocates and Clark Howard at night.
Eric Jon Magnuson 
High Tides 
Charles Everett 
northernexposure 
newsbot 
WZON also recently lost the local Red Sox rights…
https://bangordailynews.com/2018/01/19/sports/stephen-kings-radio-station-loses-red-sox-radio-broadcast-rights-to-92-9-the-ticket
I suspect that loss of the Sox broadcasts may have had a lot to do with this decision, though I read some time ago that King had long been losing money with the Progressive Talk format. I’ve been listening some since the change. I hope the station introduces some live DJs, because IMHO as it is now it’s rather boring — pretty much a waste of one of Maine’s three strongest AM signals.
As much as radio geeks love Oldies, the AM band has become a dead zone in the Pine Tree State. Rush Limbaugh is on FM in Bangor and Augusta along with a translator in Portland. The Red Sox are now on FM in Bangor as referenced.
Not only that, radio geeks forget that you can’t feed a “Live and Local” fetish without advertising revenue.
Charles, we get that you like to appear superior to “radio geeks” but must you constantly be negative?
It’s only worth going oldies fulltime if King resurrects the old WNBC jingle package.
Spoke too soon. Sean Ross indicates that they’re indeed using the WNBC jingle package. Still, seems a waste of that killer TOH ID without going into AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” like in the old days.