STATE COLLEGE - A venerable central Pennsylvania rock station changed its tune Monday.
Forever Broadcasting's WQWK-FM at 103.1 switched gears to a new format - news talk radio.
The station known most recently as QWK Rock went on the air in 1965 as QWK Radio and began playing rock music in 1969. The format switched to Top 40 in the mid-1980s, classic rock in 1989 and modern rock in 1993, said Dave Davies, vice president and general manager of Forever Broadcasting of Altoona.
The station had been broadcasting on 97.1 FM until Forever bought it from Dame Broadcasting and changed its frequency to 98.7 FM and later, 103.1 FM.
Davies said it was not easy to make the change.
"QWK Rock had been providing programming for the youth market for a long time. We put a lot of thought into the change. We took a look at the audience. The youth market was being served by two rock stations [QWK Rock at 103.1 and The Bus at 93.7]," Davies said. "We thought there are a lot of educated people and a lot of diversity in the State College market and thought the area would be receptive to the news talk format."
Sean Ross, executive editor of music and programming for Radio-info.com, an online industry group, said the move was not unusual.
"In this time, there is more news talk on FM than ever before. It is driven by stations just waiting to be where the audience is," Ross said.
Davies said there are fewer rock stations on the FM dial than there were 15 years ago.
"FM news talk has become more popular and that is why we made the change," Davies said.
WRSC-FM News Talk Radio - the new name for the station - will feature a conservative talk format and will have a local flavor in the mornings with veteran local broadcasters Kevin Nelson and Pat Boland hosting the 6 to 9 a.m. show. That show will be simulcast on WRSC-AM 1390, its sister station.
They will be followed by national talk show hosts Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Michael Sawyer.
Only one position was eliminated by the transition - QWK Rock morning show co-host Troy Craig. His partner, Jerry Valeri, was moved to Forever's adult contemporary station, Majic 99, Davies said.
QWK Rock still has a presence on the Internet at www.qwkrock.com.
Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 946-7467.
