Update 6/12: KWXY signed-on their FM translator on Wednesday.
With the addition of K297BO Palm Springs, the station is now positioning itself as “107.3 KWXY – The Sound Of Palm Springs“.
Original Report 4/7: One of the last remaining Beautiful Music stations in the country will be returning to the FM band.
R&R Radio’s 1340 KWXY Cathedral City will be launching a simulcast on 107.3 K297BO Palm Springs via 98.5 KDES-HD2. KWXY had been operating on 98.5 until February 2010 when a market shuffle caused by the move of then 104.7 KDES into the Riverside/San Bernardino market banished the station to 1340.
Ahead of the move the station has let go of PD/Morning Host Ford Michaels and afternoon host John O. K297BO will operate with 250 watts at 181 meters covering the bulk of the Palm Springs market.
Shame the legendary Dave Hull won’t be returning at the same time.
A traditional beautiful music format doesn’t need or want personality announcers.
Often, selections played on-air weren’t identified.
In fact, during the format’s heyday, many (if not most) such stations were automated.
While that is true as a generalization of the format, Joseph, you obviously never heard KWXY in its heyday.
They had live on-air personnel and did announce artists and titles.
As I alluded in my original post, it’s where legendary top-40 DJ Dave Hull went to retire.
And although WAIT in Chicago in their 60s and early 70s heyday as “The World’s Most Beautiful Music” didn’t have personalities as such except for morning drive man John Doremus, their announcers did front and backsells of every set–something that wasn’t in the McLendon KABL/XTRA/WNUS playbook (the model at the time for AM or simulcasting easy listening stations) that WAIT followed for the most part, with some exceptions (they didn’t run a teletype under their newscasts or ring a chime between every story, for example).