NH Radio: Telephone Flea Market Ends On WOKQ, WPKQ

Host Don Spencer

After 45 years on the air, Townsquare Media's WOKQ 97.5 FM  and WPKQ 103.7 FM have pulled the plug on “The Telephone Flea Market.”

The Union-Leader reports the radio flea market was a tradition for many New Hampshire listeners who would tune in Sunday mornings to hear about the items callers were selling around the state and other parts of New England.

“It had already been on the air nearly 20 years when I got to WOKQ in 1996,” former operations manager and morning show host Mark Ericson said Tuesday. “I can’t say that I was a fan of the show, but the ratings said otherwise. It was consistently one of the most listened-to shows on the station. I filled in on the show multiple times over the years and from start to finish it was 10 phone lines ringing for five hours.”

The show aired from 7 a.m. to noon with Don Spencer, who began hosting the flea market in 2008. He will remain with the station. The show’s finale was on March 24.

“All good things must someday come to an end,” the station wrote in a message on its Facebook page.

Changing listener habits appear to have been a factor in the decision to end the program that began when Dover-based WOKQ 97.5 FM started playing country music as WDNH-FM in 1973. The station kept the show when the call sign switched to WOKQ in 1977. Sister station WPKQ 103.7 FM “The Peak,” which is based in North Conway, was added in the late 1990s.

“As we know, the digital world has changed how people go to market to sell their ‘stuff,’” the station said in its Facebook post.