WOKO is an American radio station broadcasting a Country musicformat. Licensed to Burlington, Vermont, United States, the station serves the Burlington-Plattsburgh area. The station is owned by Hall Communications, Inc.
History
WJOY-FM
WJOY-FM signed on the air on June 26, 1962. It was Vermont's first FM radio station and broadcast a classical format, programmed separately from its AM counterpart, WJOY. The station contracted with Heritage Music, a company based in New York and Bellingham, Washington, to provide its musical selections. To prepare for FM broadcasting, one studio was cut in half to add an FM control room, and another studio was converted to a transmitter room for WJOY's AM and FM operations. In 1967, WJOY-AM-FM broke ground on new studio facilities, including a new and taller tower to replace the tower being used. WJOY-FM began stereo broadcasting in 1969.
WQCR
In 1971, Frank Balch, who had joined WJOY as an announcer in 1951 and had become president of the Vermont Broadcasting Corporation, acquired majority control of WJOY-AM-FM. The next year, on August 14, 1972, WJOY-FM became WQCR; the call letters were said to stand for "Wonderful Queen City Radio". The station continued to have an easy listening sound. 1975 saw two major developments for WQCR. In February, it flipped to a rock format; in July, it increased its effective radiated power from 3,200 watts to 33,000, doubling its coverage area. Balch served in the late 1970s as director of the National Association of Broadcasters and on the University of VermontBoard of Trustees. WQCR's power was further increased to 50,000 watts in 1980. Despite having fully automated programming, "Q99" was a strong second overall in the market in 1981 and led among young adults. After 35 years in broadcasting, Balch sold WJOY-WQCR to Hall Communications of Norwich, Connecticut, for $2.2 million in 1983. The new ownership switched WQCR from automated to live programming. The 1985 sign-on of WXXX put a massive dent in WQCR's ratings; the new contemporary hit outlet debuted at number one and dropped WQCR from a 21.2 share in the fall 1984 Arbitron book to a 9.4. September 9, 1988 brought technical and format changes. The station rebranded as "The New Rock 99 FM" the same day it doubled its power to 100,000 watts.
WOKO
On April 1, 1990, after 16 years as a rock station, WQCR switched to country music and adopted new WOKO call letters, seeking to fill a void in the market, which only had one FM country outlet. Around the same time, under the guidance of former executive vice president and COO Dick Reed, Hall flipped stations it owned serving New London, Connecticut and in Providence, Rhode Island, to country. The move was described by general manager Dan Dubonnet in 1992 as a quest to "save" the station, which was gaining little traction as a rocker; it tripled its weekly audience in the two years after the flip and benefited from the increased popularity of country music in the early 1990s. The station's success earned it back-to-back station of the year honors from the Vermont Association of Broadcasters in 1993 and 1994; by 1995, WOKO was back on top of the Burlington radio ratings. Hall became Vermont's first FM duopoly owner with its purchase of WEXP-FM that same year.
