WEXC

Infobox Radio Station
name = WEXC


area = Youngstown, Ohio
city = Greenville, PA
branding = The Freq 107
slogan = Today's Real Music Station
airdate =
frequency = 107.1 (MHz)
format = Christian CHR
power = 2100 watts
class = A
owner = Beacon Broadcasting, Inc.
website = [http://www.freq107online.com/ www.freq107online.com] |Unreferenced|date=December 2007

WEXC FM 107.1 is a radio station based in Greenville, Pennsylvania. It operates 24 hours per day, 7 days per week at 2100 watts. The station format is Christian CHR, featuring a mix of new and old Christian rock, hip-hop, and pop/rock music. The station also mixes in a "positive" mainstream hit on occasion. The station is owned by Beacon Broadcasting, headed by Warren-based steel supply company owner Harold Glunt.

Beacon Broadcasting owns four other radio stations, including WGRP 940 in Greenville, Pennsylvania, WLOA 1470 in Farrell, Pennsylvania, WANR 1570 in Warren, Ohio and WRTK 1540 in Niles, Ohio.

Earlier broadcast history

WEXC has long been a locally-focused voice for the small community of Greenville, Pennsylvania, though in recent years it has strongly positioned itself as a Youngstown, Ohio station, using the top of the hour ID "WEXC Greenville, Warren, Youngstown". The 107.1 frequency was first registered as WGRP-FM, a sister signal to the co-owned WGRP 940. The WEXC calls were first registered for 107.1 on May 16, 1985 according to RECnet.com.

Prior to its current incarnation as "The Freq 107", the station was known as Goodtime Oldies WEXC, a format which ran from 2003 to 2005. Christian adult contemporary ran on the signal prior to the 2003 incarnation of oldies, while mainstream adult contemporary was aired prior to that. WEXC also was a former affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Network, but the baseball broadcasts have since been moved to Sporting News Radio affiliate sister stations WGRP 940 and WLOA 1470.

Terrestrial radio is a hard business, between online radio, satellite radio, I-pods, and CD’s the old time radio station is going the way of the Buggy Whip. Greenville flag ship pair which was taken over several years ago by an unskilled radio group from Youngstown has slowly slid from being te number one station in the county, the third highest station the market under the hand of Bill Henry and Keith McMurray to the lowest numbers according to Arbitron, and backed up by duel ratings from Radio and Record magazine. So low are the numbers in-fact they are not measurable.

The station, under the direction Of Rich Marshall, became an all sports station, however after the dream failed, AM’s WGRP made a recent return to classic country music. Sadly as the station moved to a demographic that may have helped, most new cars no longer offer AM. A new law may help however, in the future, new cars will again be offering the new format, Digital AM, but the local station may not make the costly conversion, like TV, radio is going digital as well, the sound quality of Digital AM, or terrestrial digital FM, is much improved and radio stations can send messages to you in your car, telling you, in written form on your radio dial what song is n, a sponsors name, a weather alert, or anything they choose.

Charges have been filed by one local business owner against Beacon Broadcasting and Rich Marshall who represents them, for the forgery of documents relating to air play of commercials, and for the forgery of one businessman’s name on a contract for an advertising purchase the business owner says he never made.

The business owner who asked not to be identified said, ” I never signed it, I advised the owner of the Beacon Broadcasting stations, he is now trying to sue me, I have no choice but to file charges against the sales agent in this case, my reputation is being impugned for not paying something I never ordered.”

The business owner also said, “I listened for my ads daily, I never heard them play, the fake affidavits saying they ran reinforces my belief of how they operate.”

Greenville Police are investigating the allegations that a contract, worth over $500.00 that would have returned a commission of between $100.00 and $150.00 to Richard Marshall, the stations local ad sales representative had a forged signature, and the business owner claims he never authorized the advertising buy. ” I believe he forged my signature to earn a commission figuring the owner would just charge it off.” Marshall later agreed to take cash in an amount of his commission, which the business owner paid for the one contract not in question. Marshall now refuses to comment on the fact he took cash, cash that was not reported to his employer.

Beacon Broadcasting owns WEXC FM, WGRP AM, As well as a station based in Youngstown Ohio, WANR AM, and a station formally located in Sharon PA. that broadcasts an all sports format on both that station, and WGRP AM.

A letter has also been filed with the FCC electronically detailing the complaints, stating that the station produced forged documents known as AIR PLAY AFFADIVITS, that detail when a commercial runs on the air. In question, a number of commercials that the business owner is being billed for, and a number of commercals that were not purchased, nor ran, yet invoiced. The Affidavits, presented, or at least one of the three in question, detail radio airplay that lists the advertising run times to a millisecond, but the fact of the matter is, no computer was in operation to document such advertising at the time the ads ran, the computer system did not go into operation until much later, the radio subsequently refused to provide as required by law, upon request, affidavits that were notarized as correct.

Because the billing originated from another state , other than Pennsylvania, the FBI, or US Postal Service, may be called in to investigate the issue of Mail Fraud, and theft by deception, which becomes a federal matter, because of the Federal permits to operate a radio station, and because of mail traveling between two states.

“I operated the station as a board operator,” said Keith MacMurrey, “and I put the commercials in by hand, there was no computer when we ran the ads for local sports events, the creation of computer generated run schedules would have been impossible on most of these advertisements in the first of three contracts, and likely all three.”

Beacon Broadcasting had trouble previously when it’s then President Michael Arch sold nearly twice the stock shares that the company had authorized for sale in the State Of Pennsylvania, and for not honoring commercial contracts for Pirate Baseball, and other advertising buys when he, Arch, took over the station from its prior owner, Gary Fleming and the original owners of that station who he represented during the sale.

Michael Arch, who was threatened with prosecuting stepped down, Arch a former drug addict, turned born again christian, nearly ran the station in to the ground, leaving the other partners who had been drooped out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to step in and save the station through added investment, payment of invoices out of pocket, and work in kind investment.

Michael Arch, after leaving the company, had an office at the Warren Homeless Shelter, but was asked to resign after workers found hundreds of bottles of Urine in his office, according to a person from that center.

At its peek, the station was billing over $68,000 in revenue per month, it was number one in the county, and number three in the Youngstown, and Meadville markets, and was growing in popularity according to Arbitron Ratings Group, who rates radio stations, and online radio stations.

Currently Arbitron shows no measurable listeners, and the stations in that group fall in to the category of to low of a rating to measure audience share.

The station has also abandon nearly all local programming, unlike the former WEXSEE owned by a number of local investors, who worked to be part of the community in stead of just operating from an address within it, the station plays various formats from religious, to sports to oldies.

The new owner Harold Glunt, is a Steel Mill owner, from the surrounding Warren Ohio Area, who has a reported high net worth, and who purchased the stations to further christian communications in the valley. He hired former staff who worked for the station, and from prior owners, who saw the same failing numbers as a result of the skill level of the programming team.

Currently the station is operated on a computer software program with recorded voice tracks according to one former worker, we stopped by the station to ask questions, but no one was at the station, which is also a violation of federal law.

The Greenville Police say cases like this are hard to prove, often it’s one person and their word against another persons word, and in those cases charges are not always filed. Police say the investigation continues, but will not say what if anything they learned.

The local business man will be asking the Districe Attorneys office to file additional charges on Wednesday.

On-Air

The station currently has two on-air personalities: Dana Franklin in morning drive and Matt Rhodes in afternoon drive. The station also airs the Whip of Cords radio show, a harder Christian rock hosted by Matt Rhodes, on Saturday nights, as well as a hip-hop specialty show on Friday nights.

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