Cumulus Media has announced that Dayton Kane will move from Green Bay where he programmed Classic Hits 103.1 WOGB and Classic Rock “Big Dog 106.7” WKRU to the adjacent Appleton/Oshkosh market as Operations Manager and Program Director of Alternative “96.9 The Fox” WWWX and Country “99.5 Nash-FM” WPKR.
Kane joined Cumulus Green Bay in November 2016 after a 15 year run programming Woodward Communications’ cluster in the market with a year at the helm of Scripps Country 94.5 WKTI Milwaukee in between.
With Kane moving to Appleton, the Country “Nash-FM Wisconsin” simulcast between 99.5 WPKR Omro/Appleton and 104.9 WPCK Denmark/Green Bay has been broken. Both stations will continue to operate under the “Nash FM” brand but with separate airstaffs and lineups. Egdar ‘Eddie’ Ybarra, who programmed both stations, will continue to program “104.9 Nash-FM” and add those duties at WKRU. Joseph ‘JP’ Pitt who was APD/Afternoon Host at WPCK/WPKR exits as does WWWX PD Guy Dark.
The moves follow Cumulus placing 104.9 WPCK in a divestiture trust last week as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.
Cumulus Media announces that it has promoted programming professional Dayton Kane to Operations Manager and Program Director of WPKR-FM and WWWX-FM in Appleton/Oshkosh, WI. Kane moves to Appleton/Oshkosh from Green Bay, WI, where he has been Program Director of Cumulus Media’s WKRU-FM and WOGB-FM.
John Rowe, Vice President/Market Manager, Cumulus Media-Appleton/Oshkosh, said: “Dayton has demonstrated strong programming leadership qualities and produced outstanding results within Cumulus-Wisconsin. We’re excited to expand his role and take advantage of his success and experience.”
Kane said: “I am excited to be leading the charge at such heritage stations! The Cumulus-Oshkosh staff is already doing great things and I can’t wait to watch this cluster flourish in 2018.”
Eric Jon Magnuson 
radioguy805 
Even if it weren’t for WPCK being put into the trust, breaking up the simulcast isn’t too surprising: Cumulus did try having different Country formats on the two stations for some time, and it still does something similar with WVBO and WOGB’s separate Classic Hits formats. Perhaps more importantly, though, unlike with WVBO and WOGB, neither WPKR nor WPCK’s signal appears to have strong coverage over much of the Valley; WPKR may weaken around Menasha, while WPCK may not go much further than Kaukauna. (IIRC, WPKR was originally licensed to Waupun–which helps explain its continued strength around Fond du Lac.)
WPKR has it’s tower near the intersection of HWYs 23 and 26 in Rosendale. You are definitely right about it having issues going north. From personal experience once I got north of Appleton it was squeezed out by stations on both sides of it. Going the other way however I was able to hear them very well almost all the way to Milwaukee. If memory recalls me correctly the signal gave up the ghost around Menomonee Falls. I will be heading up that way next month and will be interested to see if the split up causes any noticeable difference to their programming. Of course this is wishful thinking from somebody who does not like the Nash branding but I wish they would bring back the old Wolf.