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| Broadcast area | Cape Cod;Hyannis |
| Frequency | 95.1MHz |
| Branding | Newsradio 95 WXTK |
| Programming | |
| Format | News/talk |
| Network | Fox News Radio |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | May 2, 1948; 77 years ago (1948-05-02) (as WOCB-FM on 94.3)[1] |
Former call signs |
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Former frequencies |
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Call sign meaning | "Extreme Talk" (proposed, but never used, station branding) |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 6250 |
| Class | B |
| ERP | 50,000 watts |
| HAAT | 80 meters (260 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 41°38′07″N70°14′05″W / 41.635389°N 70.234750°W /41.635389; -70.234750 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen live (viaiHeartRadio) |
| Website | 95wxtk |
WXTK (95.1FM; "Newsradio 95 WXTK") is acommercial radio stationlicensed toWest Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and servingCape Cod. It has anews/talkformat and is owned byiHeartMedia, Inc. The studios and offices are on Barnstable Road inHyannis, while thetransmitter is on Radio Lane inYarmouth. WXTK is the direct descendant of Cape Cod's first commercial radio station,WOCB.
Weekdays begin with asimulcast ofThe Jim Polito Show from co-ownedWTAG inWorcester. Polito is followed by a local show hosted by Ed Lambert. The rest of the weekday schedule is fromsyndicatedconservative talk shows:The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, theBoston-basedHowie Carr Show,The Sean Hannity Show andCoast to Coast AM withGeorge Noory. Weekends feature shows on health, money, real estate, home repair, law, travel, gardening, technology and classic radio shows on Sunday nights. Weekend hosts includeKim Komando, Paul Parent, Rich Valdés,Rudy Maxa andSomewhere in Time with Art Bell. WXTK broadcastsNew England Patriotsfootball andBoston Bruinshockey games. Most hours begin with world and national news fromFox News Radio.
WXTK is the direct descendant of Cape Cod's first commercial radio station, WOCB. TheAM radio station WOCB firstsigned on the air on October 2, 1940.[3] It was originally owned by the Cape Cod Broadcasting Company.[4] It originally operated at 1210 kHz, but moved to 1240 in 1941 as a result of theNorth American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA).[3]
WOCB shut down in May 1943 after running out of money, resulting in its license being canceled by theFCC on November 30.[3] E. Anthony and Sons, owner ofWNBH inNew Bedford and publisher of theNew Bedford Standard-Times and theCape Cod Standard-Times, bought the station's equipment and relaunched WOCB under a new license on May 6, 1944, as anaffiliate of theNBC Blue Network.[3] WOCB carried the Blue Network's dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows andbig band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio". WOCB stayed with the Blue Network as it becameABC. When ABC broke into four sub-networks in 1968, WOCB AM and FM became affiliated with ABC'sAmerican Entertainment Network.
WOCB-FM signed on the air on May 2, 1948, on 94.3 MHz.[1] It was the Cape's first commercial FM station as well, mostlysimulcasting the AM station. In 1962, it moved to 94.9 MHz.[5] (The 94.3 frequency is now used on Cape Cod by WZAI, theBrewster repeater forWCAI.)
By the 1970s, WOCB-FM had broken away from simulcasting the AM during midday and evening hours to broadcasteasy-listening music while still simulcasting the AM's format (thenadult contemporary, with a heavy news commitment. It stayed with the AM station during weekdaydrive times and hourly newscasts the rest of the broadcast day. The FM call letters were changed to WSOX-FM in 1978.[6] WRZE in 1984,[7] WJFK in 1985,[8] back to WOCB-FM in 1987,[9] WJIB in 1990 (shortly after the call sign was dropped by 96.9 FM in Boston, nowWBQT), and then WOCB-FM once more in 1991.[10]
In the summer through winter of 1981, the afternoon drive announcer on WOCB wasEdd Hall, who subsequently did voice work forLate Night with David Letterman from 1982 to 1990 and was the announcer onThe Tonight Show with Jay Leno from 1992 to 2004.
In 1991,Hurricane Bob blew down WOCB's transmitter tower, and the damage suffered was so severe that the owners could not afford to rebuild. The station was then sold to Ernie Boch Sr., an automobile dealer in theBoston suburb ofNorwood, Massachusetts, who turned WOCB-FM into the flagship station for his new Boch Broadcasting company. The station's first news director, Hal Lamb, applied to the FCC to change the station's calls to WXTK, or "X-Talk", a reference to the rarity of the news/talk format on the FM dial at the time.
WXTK initially planned to brand it as "Extreme Talk", but did not do so, though a few station IDs were produced using the branding (as late as 1998, the unused IDs were still in the station archives). Despite this, WXTK went through with the change to news/talk, and secured severalsyndication agreements, including the right to broadcastThe Rush Limbaugh Show.Limbaugh himself acknowledged his newest affiliate by remarking on-air, "I am now beaming intoKennedy compound." Over the next few years, the station also became the Cape's home ofG. Gordon Liddy (cancelled from the station as of July 2006) andHowie Carr, and longtime local morning hosts Ed Lambert and Don McKeag.
Concurrent with the WXTK relaunch, WOCB's AM 1240 facility became WUOK.[11] Under those call letters it programmedCNN Headline News,[12]sports radio,[13] and finally a WXTK simulcast.[14] In 1997, Boch donated WUOK toBoston University for use as a relay ofWBUR-FM in Boston, under the call sign WBUR (AM).[15] AM 1240 now broadcasts asWGTX.
In July 1996, WXTK filed an application with the FCC to change frequencies from 94.9 to 95.1 MHz. The application was granted on May 20, 1997.[16] The move was in response to listener complaints of co-channel interference (when two stations on the same frequency interfere with each other) fromWHOM onMount Washington.
The move took effect on-air on September 18, 1997;[17] to ease people into the new frequency, there were two weeks of promotional material over-the-air, and after the switch its branding was changed to "95.1 is 95 WXTK", putting stress on the word "is". When WXTK moved to 95.1, it had to operate "directionally" with a signal limited towardsWHRB inCambridge.
In 2005, Boch Broadcasting sold WXTK and its sister stations to Qantum Communications, owner of WRZE (nowWEII, a simulcast of sports radioWEEI-FM) andWCIB. However, Qantum had to sell WTWV/WDVT (nowWHYA andWFRQ) toNassau Broadcasting in order to stay within FCC regulations. Until that sale, WOCB/WXTK had been broadcasting from the same studio building for over 60 years.
On May 15, 2014, Qantum Communications announced that it would sell its 29 stations, including WXTK, to Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia), in a transaction connected to Clear Channel's sale ofWALK AM-FM inPatchogue, New York, toConnoisseur Media via Qantum.[18] The transaction was consummated on September 9, 2014.