After a day of stunting with Christmas music, West Virginia Radio Corporation has flipped 97.5 WKMZ-FM Martinsburg WV/Hagerstown MD back to AC “Today’s 97.5” WLTF.
The facility previously held the AC format and WLTF call letters as “Lite 97.5” and later “Today’s 97.5” until its flip to CHR in November 2017. The newly launched version of the station will feature Rona Mensah in mornings, Emily in middays, and Alex Vic in afternoons. All three are holdovers from the CHR format. WLTF will also add John Tesh for nights replacing WVAQ Morgantown’s Jason Knight.
Original Report 4/30: West Virginia Radio Corp CHR 97.5 WKMZ-FM Martinsburg WV/Hagerstown MD has dropped its format and is currently stunting with Christmas music as “Santa 97.5“.
The move follows the station reverting back to its previous WLTF call letters last week. It had been AC as “Today’s 97.5” with those calls prior to flipping to CHR in November 2017.
WKMZ held a 1.0 share of the Hagerstown/Chambersburg/Waynesboro market in the Fall 2018 Nielsen Audio ratings making it the #3 Top 40 in the market behind Verstandig Broadcasting’s “92.1 Hits-FM” WNUZ and Alpha Media’s “Live 96.7” WDLD.
dudefromva 
Charles Everett 
Les Talk 
Nearby Winchester having it’s own CHR, WKSI 98.3, along with the massive Hot AC in Winchester, WINC-FM didn’t help matters either.
Also, Cumberland, Maryland’s WQZK, also owned by West Virginia Radio Corporation, having a huge signal and a CHR format also probably didn’t help.
Cumberland radio doesn’t target Hagerstown due to distance and the mountains.
As for Winchester, 92.5 Winc FM may have a massive signal but its ratings are a state secret since its owner doesn’t subscribe to Nielsen Audio.
@Charles: This is true, Cumberland and Hagerstown station’s don’t target each other’s market’s, but WQZK has a signal that can reach to Hagerstown. Same with WFRB-FM and WRQE (formerly WKGO).
Now, these are Eastlan ratings, but WINC-FM (in Winchester) in the last book placed 2nd. The one before, they placed 1st beating WUSQ for the first time in YEARS. Of course, iHeart just goes by Nielsen which only they subscribe to in Winchester.
They tied with the HD2 signal of Manning’s adult contemporary More 102.1. That signal doesn’t even reach out of Hagerstown. And it doesnt even stream. Nor is rarely promoted. That alone should be a reason. Now, what’s odd is the death of KMZ the second time occurs. But the rebirth of 95.9 pre Dawg days as Cool 95.9 will now occur on 92.9. Hmmmm.