WKBI (AM)

Infobox Radio Station


name = WKBI-AM
frequency = 1400 (kHz)
city = Saint Marys, Pennsylvania
area =
format = Oldies
owner = The Elk-Cameron Broadcasting Co.
power = 1000 Watts
branding = "Classy 1400"
slogan = "The Memory Station"
class = C
website = http://www.wkbi.net
callsign_meaning =

WKBI, known as "Classy 1400", is an oldies music formatted radio station based in Saint Marys, Pennsylvania. The station is owned by Elk-Cameron Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of The Allegheny Mountain Network (AMN), based in Tyrone. The AMN owns 50 percent of Elk-Cameron Broadcasting. WKBI is the only AM radio station in Elk County.

History

WKBI was the very first radio station in Elk County, and there was no radio station on the air in neighboring Cameron County at the time, which is why its parent company is known as Elk-Cameron Broadcasting. Neighboring Forest County also had (and still doesn't have) no local radio station of its own. Cameron County would not receive its own radio station until 1958, when WLEM first signed on the air on March 2 of that year and then its same-named FM 27 years later.

WKBI remains the sole AM radio station in all of Elk County. For a time, WKBI was the flagship station of AMN, first having signed on the air July 23, 1950, and was thus the first station in the group. That changed five years later, when AMN founder Cary H. Simpson signed on WTRN in Tyrone. Operations for the AMN were then moved to Tyrone.

WKBI gained an FM sister station in 1966, which became known as WKBI-FM. That station is known today as B94.

WKBI's original studio location was above the Firestone Tire store in downtown St. Mary's. In the early 1970s, WKBI AM/FM moved to a new building constructed at the station's transmitter site on Melody Lane, located just outside of the St. Mary's city limits, where it remains today.

External links

* [http://www.wkbi.net/ WKBI official website]
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