1996 in radio
overview of radio-related events during the year of 1996
The year 1996 in radio involved some significant events.
Events
President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which greatly increased the number of stations one could own per market, into law.
Geneseo, Illinois radio stations WGEN (1500 AM) and WGEN-FM (104.9) are sold to Connoisseur Communications, owner of KJOC, KQCS, WXLP and KBOB with studios in Davenport, Iowa. The FM signal is simply a repeater of KJOC's signal, which has an all-sports format, while the AM signal repeats KBOB (at the time, located at 99.7 FM with a country format) as Connoisseur was considering future plans for the two stations.
January 5 - WXRK/New York flips from classic rock to a hybrid modern rock/active rock format, while keeping the "K-Rock" moniker.
January 20 - WPAT-FM Paterson, NJ/New York City ends its Adult Contemporary format of over 3 years and shuts down the entire intellectual unit on 93.1 FM, located in Clifton, NJ at 12:01 a.m. The frequency and transmitter only were sold by Park Communications to Spanish Broadcasting System who at the next moment sign on the station with the same call letters from Manhattan with a Spanish AC format. WPAT FM had been a Beautiful Music Station for decades and evolved to AC at the end of 1992. AM 930 WPAT remains AC for a couple more months as they are also sold but to another Spanish broadcast group Heftel.
February - Jacor announced it would purchase Citicasters, Inc.
The public source identifies “1996 in radio” as overview of radio-related events during the year of 1996. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around radio, overview and radio-related.
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This entry incorporates text from “1996 in radio” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.