City Newport News, Virginia Branding "97-3 The Eagle" First air date November, 1948 | Broadcast area Hampton Roads Frequency 97.3 FM MHz | |
Slogan "Hampton Roads Country Station" | ||
WGH-FM (97.3 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station licensed to Newport News, Virginia, serving Hampton Roads. WGH-FM is owned and operated by Max Media and airs a country music radio format. It uses the slogan "97.3 The Eagle."
Studios and offices are on Greenwich Road in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The transmitter is on Newport News Point, near Interstate 664.
Station History
WGH-FM first signed on the air in November 1948, one of the first FM stations in Virginia. It broadcasts at 74,000 watts in an area of the country where today the maximum power for FM radio stations should be 50,000 watts. But because the station dates back to 1948, before the Federal Communications Commission set rules for FM power levels, it is grandfathered at the higher power. The call letters for WGH-FM and its sister station WGH 1310 AM stand for World's Greatest Harbor, a slogan for the Hampton Roads or Tidewater area of Virginia, where there is a large shipbuilding industry and both commercial and military ports. For many years in its early days, WGH-FM was a classical music station.