WZCR

Infobox Radio station
name = WZCR


city = Hudson, New York
area = Upper Hudson Valley, lower Capital District
branding = "Cruisin' 93.5"
slogan = "Good Times, Great Oldies"
airdate = 1968
frequency = 93.5 MHz
format = Oldies
haat =
erp = 5,800 watts
haat = -5 meters
class = A
facility_id = 63532
callsign_meaning = WZ CRuisin'
former_callsigns = WHUC-FM (1968-81) WRVW (1981-95) WTHK (1995-2001)
owner = Clear Channel Communications
webcast =
website = [http://www.cruisin935.com cruisin935.com]

WZCR (93.5 FM, "Cruisin' 93.5") is an oldies radio station licensed to Hudson, New York, and serving Columbia and Geene counties as well as the upper Hudson Valley, the southern Capital District, and Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications and broadcasts from a tower located near the Hudson River in Hudson.

History

WZCR signed on in 1968 as WHUC-FM, sister to WHUC and the first FM station between Kingston and Albany. Initially airing automated easy listening music, the station would flip to a simulcast of WHUC's successful Top 40 format by 1971, a format it would keep for the next decade. During this time, it was not uncommon for the WHUC stations to appear in the ratings for the Albany market to the point that some Albany businesses advertised on the stations.

With Top 40 in a downturn, the simulcast was broken in April 1981 with WHUC-FM flipping to country music and taking the WRVW calls. This format, created in response to the high amount of listeners Albany's WGNA had gotten in Columbia and Greene counties, would last for most of the 1980s with the station abandoning country for oldies in 1988 as "93 Gold FM".

WRVW's oldies format was an initial success (rating in Albany, which lacked an FM oldies station at the time), however after Albany ended up with an "oldies war" of such WRVW lost revenue which led to various ways of cost cutting. This would continue until early 1995 when Straus Media, owners of WCTW and WCKL in Catskill, bought WHUC and WRVW. While the Hudson stations were awaiting closing, Straus purchased WELV and WWWK in Ellenville and it was until those stations closed that any changes took place in Hudson.

In the Spring of 1995, WRVW and WWWK joined together as "Thunder Country", a satellite-fed "Hot Country" format; with this format change, WRVW took the WTHK calls. WTHK struggled against WGNA to the north and WRWD to the south, however the station did last out the 1990s It was during this time that Straus's Hudson/Catskill stations were relocated to the company's Poughkeepsie headquarters, a move met with some local criticism.

The sale of Straus Media to Clear Channel Communications in 2000 led to the divesture of the Hudson/Catskill stations and WBPM in Kingston to Concord Media, an affiliated holding company. With this sale came the relocation of WTHK and its sister stations to a new facility in Hudson along with a format change that November to its current Oldies format with the WZCR calls soon following. Clear Channel would later buy the Hudson/Catskill stations (less WCKL) in early 2003 with satellite-fed programming being soon replaced.

On two occasions (in 2004 and 2005), WZCR has been simulcasted on WCKL as filler programming as Clear Channel has unsuccessfully tried to sell that station due to market concentration concerns.

External links

* [http://www.cruisin935.com Cruisin' 93.5 WZCR official website]
*FMQ|WZCR
*FML|WZCR
*FMARB|WZCR