WBVP


WBVP and WMBA are news/talk radio stations based in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, United States. The stations serve Beaver County, Pennsylvania and simulcast their programming. The stations are owned by Mark and Cynthia Peterson, through licensee Sound Ideas Media, LLC.
WBVP operates at 1230 kHz with an ERP of 1 kW-Unlimited power and is licensed to Beaver Falls, while WMBA operates at 1460 kHz with an ERP of 500 W-Unlimited power and is licensed to Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

History

WBVP started broadcasting on May 25, 1948 and was founded by a threesome from Pittsburgh, PA including Tom Price, Frank Smith and Charles Ondurka. In 1955, The original partners reorganized and formed Beaver Valley Broadcasting. Around 1970, Hall Communications bought WBVP along with an FM radio station, originally known as WBVP - FM at 106.7 mHz, that had been put on the air in 1968. In 1985, Ted and Marilee Ruscitti from Hopewell township, PA bought WBVP and the FM station, that by this point in time the call letters had been changed and it was known as WWKS, through their company, MT Communications. In 1990, The stations were sold to the Baltimore Radio Show out of Towson, MD with Harry Shriver serving as managing partner. Carnegie, PA native Frank Iorio, Jr., along with partners Aaron Daniels and Mike Swartz formed Pittsburgh Radio Partners and bought the two stations in 1994. Just a year later, the trio sold the FM station, WWKS, to Secret Communications and at that time Iorio bought out his partners and continued to own and operate WBVP through his newly formed company, Iorio Broadcasting, Inc. Iorio then bought WMBA from Donn Communications in 2000. Long time station employee, Mark Peterson along with his wife, Cyndi, Formed Sound Ideas Media, LLC, and purchased WBVP and WMBA in 2014. In 2019, an F.M. translator station, for WBVP, W257EA, at 99.3 was put on the air and added as a third station carrying the simulcast feed already aired on WBVP and WMBA. The following year, the stations debuted via the station's website.
WBVP and WMBA competed for over 40 years, going back to when WMBA first went on the air in 1957. Miners Broadcasting Service, Inc., headquartered in Pottsville, PA, put WMBA on the air as a 500 watt day timer with its towers located in Bell Acres, PA and studio in Ambridge, PA. The station was sold in 1970 to John Bride, a former Pittsburgh television advertising salesman. His Bride Broadcasting, Inc. instituted a more contemporary format, including local talk shows and Top 40 music after 4 p.m. during the week and on weekends. Bride continued to own and operate the station even after he moved his base of operations to Maine, where he owned other radio stations. Bride finally sold the station to Donn Communications in 1986 and the studios and offices moved from a converted house at 291 14th Street in Ambridge to a storefront at 761 Merchant Street in Ambridge's business district. In 1988, FCC approval was granted and new towers were constructed at the transmitter site to allow for WMBA to broadcast 24 hours a day.
In 1960, WBVP was joined by a 16,500 watt F.M. sister station that was first known as WBVP-F.M.and located at 106.7 Mhz. The station underwent a huge transformation in 1975. It gained approval from the FCC to increase power to 47,000 watts and broadcast from a much taller, newly constructed, 517' guyed tower in Pulaski Township, PA. The metamorphosis also included getting new call letters, WWKS, and becoming best known throughout the 70's and 80's as "Kiss FM". In 1994, WWKS switched to a hard rock format and became branded as "The Force". The combination of the station beginning to attract larger audiences and more advertising dollars, along with the FCC relaxation of station ownership rules in the mid nineties, made it a very attractive acquisition for another radio group operating stations in Pittsburgh. That led to WWKS being separated from WBVP in 1995, when Pittsburgh Radio Partners sold the asset to Secret Communications, eventually becoming part of Clear Channel Communications. After a couple more transactions, call letters and format changes through the years, today it is operated by St. John's Mission as Pittsburgh station WAOB-FM. Following the 1995 sale of WWKS, WBVP was sold in a spin-off transaction to Frank Iorio, Jr, and his company Iorio Broadcasting, Inc. Iorio, Jr. was one of the partners involved with Pittsburgh Radio Partners. For the next 24 years, there would be no F.M. broadcasting at the stations' headquarters in Beaver Falls, PA. That changed in August of 2019, when a translator station for WBVP, at 99.3 F.M., was added to the mix. The new F.M. allocation broadcasts at a height of 492' mounted to same Pulaski Township tower. All three radio stations, 1230 WBVP, 1460 WMBA and 99.3 F.M. continue to simulcast a wide variety of local news, sports and talk programming.

Merger with WMBA

In May 2000, WMBA owner Donn Wuycik, president of Donn Communications, entered into an agreement to sell WMBA to Iorio Broadcasting, for an undisclosed amount.
Since 2000, though, they have been under single ownership and WMBA's operations were moved from 761 Merchant Street in Ambridge into WBVP's existing facilities at 1316 Seventh Avenue in Beaver Falls. WBVP and WMBA, which aired separate talk formats with nostalgia and adult contemporary music, respectively, began to duplicate more of each other's programming as time evolved, and today the stations are nearly 100 percent simulcast. The exceptions are usually confined to high school sports, where each station will air live play-by-play of a game significant to its community.
Frank Iorio wanted to concentrate on his new Pittsburgh acquisition, WJAS, a transaction which he would successfully complete in the summer of 2014. Longtime WBVP and WMBA general manager Mark Peterson had aspired to acquire a station of his own, and Iorio arranged to sell the station to Peterson and his wife. Both WBVP and WMBA were sold to Peterson's newly formed company, Sound Ideas Media, LLC for $750,000 in a transaction that was consummated on February 28, 2014.

WBVP and WMBA today

WBVP and WMBA are generally live and local from 6 a.m. until 1 p.m. on weekdays. The local programming centers around news and talk shows. The remainder of the broadcast day is then usually filled with syndicated programming. In recent years, both stations have aired play-by-play of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Pittsburgh Pirates games.
Both stations have served as a springboard for on-air personnel who have moved on to bigger stations, and that trend continues today. Among the WBVP alumni are Bob Alexander, Alan Boal, Jim Reynolds, Chris Shovlin, Bill Kelly, Sam Nicotero, Earl Lewis, Justin McKim, Ken Mueller, Randy Buckwalter, Carl Anderson, Mark Razz, Gert Trobe, Mike Romigh, George Allen, Owen Simon, Sam Siple, Chuck Wilson, Don Kennedy, Ernie Kline, who later became Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, Bob Barrickman and Tom Hays. Among those who served at WMBA are Bob Pompeani, Jim Merkel, Guy Junker, Ted Ruscitti, Jim Ladd, Kevin Maguire, Ray Fallen, Woody Lester, Dave Stevens, Rick Pantale, Dave Justice, T.J. Jamison, Dave Denniston, Roy Angst, Frank Greenlee, John Poister, Tim Herrera, Rick Bergman, Al McDowell, Julie Bologna, Randy Cosgrove, Don Shields, Debbie Smith, Dan Dunlap, Gene Romano and John Mehno. Other notable WMBA staffers include Rob Matzie, who in 2008, was elected as a State Representative in Pennsylvania's 16th District.