City Covington, Kentucky Frequency 1320 kHz | Branding 1320 The Voice First air date October 1965 | |
Broadcast area Greater Cincinnati, Ohio/Tri-state area Slogan Cincinnati's Voice of Gospel | ||
WCVG (1320 AM, "The Voice") is a radio station licensed to Covington, Kentucky, and serving the Cincinnati, Ohio market. WCVG operates with 500 watts during daytime hours and 430 watts during nighttime hours from its tower site behind the Latonia Shopping Center in Covington. WCVG's daytime signal is directional, and resembles a "figure-8" pattern that covers the Cincinnati market inside the I-275 loop. WCVG's nighttime pattern points to the south and west and does not cover much of the Ohio portion of the market. The northern Kentucky counties still have a listenable nighttime signal.
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History
WCVG started life in 1965 as WCLU, owned by WCLU Broadcasting Company, Inc. headed by former Kansas City radio executive Irving Schwartz. WCLU was a daytime-only station that played "Modern Country" music and went by the "Big CLU Country" nickname. The station also ran auto racing, Notre Dame Fighting Irish football, and Cleveland Browns football. In 1981, WCLU switched to a rock and roll format. The city's former AM Top 40 station, WSAI, had switched to country in 1978. WCLU had a decidedly "New Wave" sound until about 1983, when the station became "Cincinnati's Hit Playin' AM" and was dubbed "CLU-132." It was a moniker that sounded very similar to the city's FM Top 40 powerhouse station WKRQ, or "Q-102." In 1985, announcers on the station stopped calling it "CLU-132" and went with the easier to say and remember, "AM 1320 WCLU." The Top 40 incarnation of WCLU, which operated only during the daytime, was plagued by a very weak signal, a lack of a promotional budget, and technical problems such as records frequently skipping. However, this era of WCLU had a few loyal fans who still hold the station in very high regard.
New owners, All Elvis, Gospel, and Spanish
In April 1987, Schwartz sold the station to Richard L. Plessinger, who also owned WJOJ-FM in Milford, Ohio and WAXZ (Georgetown, Ohio). Plessinger immediately moved the station from Covington to the WJOJ studios in Milford. WCLU's call letters were changed to WCVG and the format became "Kwick-Sell Classifieds." During this format, the station played soft adult contemporary music from the WJOJ library, and ran free on-air classified ads at specified times. The station also received permission from the Federal Communications Commission to operate with nighttime service during this time.
In mid 1987, WCVG switched to a contemporary country format. That didn't last long as WCVG became the country's first "All Elvis" station, the brainchild of Steve Parton, in the summer of 1988. WCVG launched the "All Elvis" format on August 1, 1988. It remained all-Elvis until the 12th anniversary of Elvis' death, August 16, 1989. On that date, WCVG became an affiliate of the Business Radio Network with 24 hours of business news and talk.
WCVG later became a Country/Sports Talk mix format as "Sports-Country 1320" in 1992. A satellite-delivered country music format aired during most of the day, with local sports talk programs airing on weekends and evenings. These shows emphasized northern Kentucky high school and Cincinnati professional sports talk. It was during this format that the station's studios were moved back into the Latonia site. In 1993, WCVG started a long run as the city's "Urban Gospel" station under LMA agreements with groups such as Kingdom Life Ministries. That ended in April 2006, when Plessinger switched the station's format to Classic Country.
In July 2006, the station was purchased for $1.9 million by Davidson Media and began transitioning to Regional Mexican programing in the Spanish language under Program Director Mayra Arroyo and General Managaer Simon Cipriano. On July 16, 2006, the station began broadcasting 24/7 regional Mexican programming in the Spanish language under the nickname "La Ley" Radio. The station's Latino/Hispanic music broadcasts included contemporary Mexican music and tropical rhythms such as salsa and bachata.
On September 8, 2008, WCVG returned to its Urban Gospel format under the same management that had previously operated it. That group, TMH Media Inc. was approved for ownership of the station on June 23, 2009. However, the deal was never consummated and despite extensions of consummation filed with the FCC, the station's transmitter was shut off on Thursday, December 10, 2009.
A Silent STA Application (required when a station intends to go silent, but keep its license) was filed with the FCC on January 14, 2010. It was dismissed on March 30, 2010. The station returned to the air with a Gospel music format after the station was sold by Davidson Media to Great Lakes Radio-Cincinnati, LLC. The deal was approved by the FCC on April 8, 2010 and consummated on June 8, 2010. WCVG remains on the air with a Gospel music format as of this writing on April 12, 2013.
WCVG was the 2013 home for the Florence Freedom play-by-play broadcasts. The team belongs to the independent Frontier League.
According to "Radio World", WCVG was bought by Reign Enterprises from Great Lakes Radio-Cincinnati in July, 2016. http://www.1320thevoice.com/gospel1320/ tells us that "www.gospel1320.com WCVG 1320 AM is now www.1320thevoice.com - A Reign Enterprizes station."