WNFN
Encyclopedia
WNFN is a Top 40 (CHR)
formatted radio station
in the Nashville, Tennessee
market, broadcasting a Top 40 format.
Previously licensed to the affluent Nashville suburb
of Belle Meade
, and recently obtaining a permit for an increased signal, with a new license based in nearby Millersville
, WNFN was formerly operated under the callsign of WNPL. The station's original construction permit listed Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
as the city of license, but this was changed amid concerns of interference with radio communications at Nashville International Airport
. WNFN now transmits their signal over HD Radio.
On September 16, 2011, WNFN and sister station WRQQ were placed into an independent trust (Volt Radio, LLC) while Cumulus seeks a buyer. The move was forced by FCC ownership limits following Cumulus' acquisition of Citadel Broadcasting
, which resulted locally in WKDF
and WGFX
joining the Cumulus cluster. The FCC, as of 2011, allows a single company to own a maximum of five FM stations and two AM stations in any given market. To meet these guidelines in Nashville, Cumulus was forced to spin off two of its seven FM stations, and the company chose WRQQ and WNFN, traditionally its two lowest-performing stations.
On November 14, 2011, Cumulus announced it was removing WRQQ from the Volt Radio trust, replacing it with WQQK
.
The former all-sports format was adopted on December 23, 2004, in part as a way of splitting the sports shows then broadcast on WWTN
away from the political talk show
s that it otherwise broadcasts on the premise that the overlap in listenership between the two formats is minimal, and the callsign change soon followed. The station had marketed itself as "Nashville's only all-sports FM" and "Nashville's Sports Leader", until being dropped on July 29, 2009.
The once-popular SportsNight afternoon drive-time talk show was briefly simulcast on both WWTN and WNPL/WNFN before being relegated to WNPL/WNFN alone in early 2005. Due in part to the lower power of WNFN and in part to the previous departure of popular host George Plaster
to competitor WGFX
, SportsNight (hosted by Blake Fulton, Joe Biddle and, for around two years, Pete Weber) fell into a precipitous ratings decline. Both it and the mid-day local talk show Sports Brunch (hosted by John Dwyer and Bryan Mullen) were discontinued in March 2006. SportsNight would eventually be replaced by The Sports Guys (which began in July 2006) featuring longtime Nashville sportscaster Bob Bell, former Middle Tennessee State University
head football coach Boots Donnelly and Nashville newcomer Jonathan Shaffer. Donnelly left the show in February 2007, and was replaced by former Tennessee Titans
President Jeff Diamond. Bell left in July 2007 and replaced by Thom Abraham out of Cumulus sister station WUMP
/Huntsville. The Abraham show was discontinued after February 6, 2009, leaving no local content, except for MTSU games and coaches shows. Otherwise, the station broadcasted almost exclusively programming from ESPN Radio
and selected major sporting events. ESPN Radio was formerly featured on AM 560 WNSR
(Nashville Sports Radio) in Nashville. According to a story in Billboard's Radio Monitor and other publications, Cumulus Media, WNFN's owner and ABC Radio, ESPN's parent company were both sued in Federal Court in Nashville over tortious interference
with a contract (between ESPN and WNSR) due to the move of ESPN programming from WNSR to WNFN. According to the article, this was in violation of antitrust laws. Settlement was apparently made out of court after Cumulus and ABC tried unsuccessfully to move the suit to New York. After the sports format was dropped at WNFN, ESPN Radio was picked up by former rival WGFX.
In 2006, WNFN became the flagship station
of the Middle Tennessee State University
athletic department, and remained such until the sports format was dropped, at which time this function was reverted to the university's own station, WMOT
.
format as i106, and immediately after the launch, the old 106.7 The Fan website redirected to the new i106 website. "Boom Boom Pow
" by The Black Eyed Peas
was the first song. This is Cumulus's second top 40 station launched during the same month, cloned after sister station WRWM
in Indianapolis
.
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...
formatted radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
in the Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
market, broadcasting a Top 40 format.
Previously licensed to the affluent Nashville suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
of Belle Meade
Belle Meade, Tennessee
Belle Meade is a city in Davidson County, Tennessee, United States, within Nashville.-Overview:In 1963, it was absorbed into the metropolitan government of Nashville-Davidson County, however, it retains its independent city status, and its residents pay taxes both to the Metro government and to the...
, and recently obtaining a permit for an increased signal, with a new license based in nearby Millersville
Millersville, Tennessee
Millersville is a city in Robertson and Sumner counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The population was 5,308 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Millersville is located at ....
, WNFN was formerly operated under the callsign of WNPL. The station's original construction permit listed Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
Mt. Juliet is a city located in the western portion of Wilson County, Tennessee, U.S.A. It is a suburb of Nashville, and is approximately east of downtown. It is located roughly between two major national east-west routes, Interstate 40 and U.S. Route 70. As of the 2010 census, the city had a...
as the city of license, but this was changed amid concerns of interference with radio communications at Nashville International Airport
Nashville International Airport
Nashville International Airport is a joint civil-military airport in southeastern Nashville, Tennessee. The IATA Airport Code BNA is derived from the early name of the facility—Berry Field, NAshville. Berry Field was the name of the airport until 1988, when the name was changed to reflect...
. WNFN now transmits their signal over HD Radio.
On September 16, 2011, WNFN and sister station WRQQ were placed into an independent trust (Volt Radio, LLC) while Cumulus seeks a buyer. The move was forced by FCC ownership limits following Cumulus' acquisition of Citadel Broadcasting
Citadel Broadcasting
Citadel Broadcasting Corporation was a Las Vegas, Nevada-based broadcast holding company. Citadel owned 243 radio stations across the United States and was the third-largest radio station owner in the country...
, which resulted locally in WKDF
WKDF
WKDF is a Country music radio station broadcasting on a frequency of 103.3 MHz from Nashville, Tennessee. WKDF is owned by Cumulus Media.-History:...
and WGFX
WGFX
WGFX is a radio station broadcasting on the FM band at 104.5 MHz licensed to the city of Gallatin, Tennessee, but serving the Nashville market as a whole. It is currently branded as 104.5 The Zone, broadcasting a sports talk format. It is owned by Cumulus Media and operates out of studios on Second...
joining the Cumulus cluster. The FCC, as of 2011, allows a single company to own a maximum of five FM stations and two AM stations in any given market. To meet these guidelines in Nashville, Cumulus was forced to spin off two of its seven FM stations, and the company chose WRQQ and WNFN, traditionally its two lowest-performing stations.
On November 14, 2011, Cumulus announced it was removing WRQQ from the Volt Radio trust, replacing it with WQQK
WQQK
WQQK is an Urban Adult Contemporary FM radio station broadcasting in the Nashville, Tennessee market on a frequency of 92.1 MHz.Beginning in the 1970s as the pioneering station of the "rock oldies" format in the Nashville market, "92-Q" WQQK was later reformatted to Urban contemporary format and...
.
As WNPL
- 1998 to 1999: "106.7 The Planet" (Hot Adult Contemporary)
- 1999 to 2000: "Kiss 106.7" (Classic R&B)
- 2000 to 2002: "Rooster 106" (Active RockActive rockActive rock is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations across the United States and Canada. Active rock plays contemporary rock artists with a mix of songs common in the classic rock radio format.-Format background:...
) (briefly named "Beaver 106" upon launch) - 2002 to 2004: "Blazin' 106.7" (Urban ContemporaryUrban contemporaryUrban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, pop, electronica such as dubstep and drum and bass and Caribbean music...
)
As WNFN
- 2004 to 2009: "ESPN 106.7 The Fan" (Sports Talk) (briefly named "SportsRadio 106.7 The Fan" upon launch)
The former all-sports format was adopted on December 23, 2004, in part as a way of splitting the sports shows then broadcast on WWTN
WWTN
WWTN is a 100 kW, Class C0 FM radio station serving the Nashville, Tennessee media market. Its dial position is 99.7 MHz. Home to many local and national talk radio shows, the station is marketed as SuperTalk 99.7 WTN...
away from the political talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
s that it otherwise broadcasts on the premise that the overlap in listenership between the two formats is minimal, and the callsign change soon followed. The station had marketed itself as "Nashville's only all-sports FM" and "Nashville's Sports Leader", until being dropped on July 29, 2009.
The once-popular SportsNight afternoon drive-time talk show was briefly simulcast on both WWTN and WNPL/WNFN before being relegated to WNPL/WNFN alone in early 2005. Due in part to the lower power of WNFN and in part to the previous departure of popular host George Plaster
George Plaster
George Plaster is the former host of The Sports Zone, a daily afternoon sports talk radio program broadcasting on WGFX-FM in Nashville, Tennessee. Plaster had hosted the show since shortly after its 2003 inception, and for ten years prior, hosted SportsNight, a similar program on WWTN-FM...
to competitor WGFX
WGFX
WGFX is a radio station broadcasting on the FM band at 104.5 MHz licensed to the city of Gallatin, Tennessee, but serving the Nashville market as a whole. It is currently branded as 104.5 The Zone, broadcasting a sports talk format. It is owned by Cumulus Media and operates out of studios on Second...
, SportsNight (hosted by Blake Fulton, Joe Biddle and, for around two years, Pete Weber) fell into a precipitous ratings decline. Both it and the mid-day local talk show Sports Brunch (hosted by John Dwyer and Bryan Mullen) were discontinued in March 2006. SportsNight would eventually be replaced by The Sports Guys (which began in July 2006) featuring longtime Nashville sportscaster Bob Bell, former Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University, commonly abbreviated as MTSU, is a public university located in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States....
head football coach Boots Donnelly and Nashville newcomer Jonathan Shaffer. Donnelly left the show in February 2007, and was replaced by former Tennessee Titans
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. They are members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the team began play in 1960 as a charter...
President Jeff Diamond. Bell left in July 2007 and replaced by Thom Abraham out of Cumulus sister station WUMP
WUMP
WUMP is a Sports/Talk formatted radio station licensed to Madison, Alabama. WUMP primarily serves the Huntsville, Alabama, market, though its studios are located in Athens. The station is owned by Cumulus Media, based in Atlanta, Georgia.-Sports:WUMP currently carries Alabama Vipers games...
/Huntsville. The Abraham show was discontinued after February 6, 2009, leaving no local content, except for MTSU games and coaches shows. Otherwise, the station broadcasted almost exclusively programming from ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio is an American sports radio network. It was launched on January 1, 1992 under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN." ESPN Radio is located at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut...
and selected major sporting events. ESPN Radio was formerly featured on AM 560 WNSR
WNSR
WNSR is a Nashville-area Class D radio station operating on the AM frequency of 560 kHz. WNSR's majority owner is Randolph Victor Bell, and the station's general manager is former WSM personality Ted Johnson....
(Nashville Sports Radio) in Nashville. According to a story in Billboard's Radio Monitor and other publications, Cumulus Media, WNFN's owner and ABC Radio, ESPN's parent company were both sued in Federal Court in Nashville over tortious interference
Tortious interference
Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of tort, occurs when a person intentionally damages the plaintiff's contractual or other business relationships...
with a contract (between ESPN and WNSR) due to the move of ESPN programming from WNSR to WNFN. According to the article, this was in violation of antitrust laws. Settlement was apparently made out of court after Cumulus and ABC tried unsuccessfully to move the suit to New York. After the sports format was dropped at WNFN, ESPN Radio was picked up by former rival WGFX.
In 2006, WNFN became the flagship station
Flagship station
In broadcasting, a flagship is the broadcast which originates a television network, or a particular radio show or TV show, primarily in the United States and Canada. This includes both direct network feeds and broadcast syndication, but generally not backhauls...
of the Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University, commonly abbreviated as MTSU, is a public university located in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States....
athletic department, and remained such until the sports format was dropped, at which time this function was reverted to the university's own station, WMOT
WMOT
WMOT is a radio station featuring classical music, jazz music and news and talk programming, serving the metropolitan Nashville, Tennessee market. It is licensed to Middle Tennessee State University, located in nearby Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Its signal can be heard most clearly in the counties...
.
Reformat to Top 40
On July 29, 2009, WNFN went "under construction", airing construction sounds saying that a new station in Nashville was being built and to check back at 1:06pm. There had been rumors that the station would flip to a religious format as "Praise 106" and a man in a deep voice would occasionally quickly say "Praise 106", after a female announcer would say "A new station for Nashville is coming soon!", however no "Praise 106" ever launched, and this was thought to only throw people off. On July 30, 2009 at 1:06pm CST the station launched a Top 40 (CHR)Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...
format as i106, and immediately after the launch, the old 106.7 The Fan website redirected to the new i106 website. "Boom Boom Pow
Boom Boom Pow
"Boom Boom Pow" is a song by The Black Eyed Peas released as the lead single from their fifth studio album, The E.N.D. The song uses the auto-tune vocal effect, and blends the genres of Electro-rap, dance-pop, electro hop and hip hop....
" by The Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas are an American pop group , formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1995. The group includes rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo, and singer Fergie. Since the release of their third album Elephunk in 2003, the group has sold an estimated 56 million records worldwide...
was the first song. This is Cumulus's second top 40 station launched during the same month, cloned after sister station WRWM
WRWM
WRWM is a hot adult contemporary music-formatted radio station licensed to serve Fishers, Indiana, and broadcasting in the Indianapolis area. WRWM was recently granted a construction permit to move its city of license to Lawrence, Indiana, and upgrade its power from 2.95 kW to 6.9 kW in...
in Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
.