City Gallatin, Tennessee Slogan "Today's Best Hits!" First air date April 23, 1967 | Branding Magic 1560 Frequency 1560 kHz Format Adult Contemporary | |
WMRO (1560 AM, "Magic 1560") is a radio station licensed to and serving Gallatin, Tennessee. The station is locally owned by Scott, Leslie, and Sandra Bailey of Classic Broadcasting, Inc. The station's studios and transmitter facilities are located a half mile north of downtown Gallatin.
Contents
Programming
The station is branded as "Magic 1560" and airs the "satellite-fed " Adult Contemporary music format from Westwood One. On Sundays, church services, religious, and local programming focusing on Gallatin area are aired. On September 12, 2014, the station changed its format from Hot Adult Contemporary to a Mainstream Adult Contemporary Format.
History
While reliable sources say the station was founded in 1967 as WWGM, there is evidence the station was on the air much earlier. It began in February 1962, as Nashville station WLVN, a 10,000 watt daytime only station. The call letters were changed to WWGM in April 1963. The station moved to Gallatin in February 1994. The station was assigned the WMRO call letters by the Federal Communications Commission on November 9, 1993. The call letters had previously belonged to a station in Aurora, Illinois, for the previous 30 years (see below).
In October 1978, WWGM was sold to Dean A. Crawford and the deal gained FCC approval on January 9, 1979. According to the FCC records, in 1974, Faye B. Lindsey began to work at the station, eventually working her way up to a management position; by 1981, she was the station's general manager. In September 1986, Dean A. Crawford Broadcasting Co. reached an agreement to sell WWGM to Lindsey Christian Broadcasting Company, consisting of Faye and her husband Rudy Lindsey. The deal was approved by the FCC on November 25, 1986, and the transaction was consummated on December 16, 1986. Throughout this era, the station was identified as a religious-oriented radio station, playing "traditional Christian music."
In April 1993, Lindsey Christian Broadcasting Company reached an agreement to sell WWGM to Classic Broadcasting, Inc. The deal was approved by the FCC on October 25, 1993, and the transaction was consummated on October 28, 1993. The new owners had the FCC change the call letters to WMRO on November 9, 1993.
On February 19, 1994, with its new call sign of WMRO, the station began playing an oldies music format. On April 1, 2006, the station flipped to a hot adult contemporary music format because of the area's changing demographics as a Nashville bedroom community and another station in the county switching to an oldies format. In December 2006, majority control of Classic Broadcasting was transferred from William E. "Bill" Bailey to Timothy Scott Bailey.
On September 12, 2014, the station change format from Hot Adult Contemporary to a Mainstream Adult Contemporary music format.
Before buying WMRO, Scott Bailey was an air personality known as "Scott the Rock" at Nashville's WVOL (1470 AM) and WQQK (92.1 FM) known as 92Q.
Original Call Letter use
The WMRO call letters were originally assigned to Aurora, Illinois. WMRO-AM existed from 1938 until 1989 (now WBIG). Sister WMRO-FM signed on in 1965. (now WLEY-FM)