Washington, PA Radio: AM Daytimer Signs-Off

WKZV 1110 AM, the 1,000-watt Washington, PA radio station that played a “classic country” format from sunrise to sunset vanished from the airwaves for good May 16.

According to the Observer-Reporter, the station sign-off with no fanfare, the station had been on the air, on and off, since October 1970, when it signed on as WKEG and played country and polka music.

The station’s fate was sealed by a 45-year-old transmitter that would have cost too much to repair, according to Randy Allum, a disc jockey at the station who hosted a Saturday morning program.

A letter submitted to the Federal Communications Commission May 21 by Robert Olender, a Maryland attorney representing Helen Supinski, the Canonsburg resident who owned WKZV, asks that the station’s license be canceled “due to adverse economic conditions and the health of its principal.”

It goes on to state that the station’s tower would be maintained until it can be torn down.

WKZV was a rarity in the radio universe – a station that only broadcast during the day, with no website and no live stream.

Daytime-only stations on the AM dial have been vanishing with some regularity, according to Ken Hawk, a Pittsburgh-area radio veteran based in Butler County who briefly worked at WKZV. That it was independently owned only made the hill harder to climb for WKZV.

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