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WNBY FM

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City
  
Newberry, Michigan

Branding
  
Oldies 93

First air date
  
1977

Broadcast area
  
[1]

Frequency
  
93.9 MHz

Format
  
Classic Hits/Oldies Christmas music (Nov.-Dec.)

WNBY-FM (93.9 FM, "Oldies 93") is a classic hits/oldies music formatted radio station licensed to Newberry, Michigan, and serving the Sault Ste. Marie market. The station is owned and operated by Sovereign Communications. The station shares a call sign and ownership history with Newberry AM station WNBY 1450, which broadcasts a classic country format.

WNBY has operated on different frequencies over the years, starting at 93.5 FM, then 93.7 FM, and finally to its current frequency at 93.9 FM in 2004. For many years, WNBY-FM was a typical small-town full-service radio station, primarily serving Newberry and Luce County with a mixture of adult contemporary, country and oldies music plus local news and sports.

At the time of the station's move from 93.7 to 93.9 (along with a transmitter move eastward from Luce County into Chippewa County, north of Eckerman), WNBY-FM's format changed from adult contemporary to a 1960s and 1970s oldies format targeted primarily at Sault Ste. Marie, though the station retains offices in Newberry. The format change returned the Oldies format to the air in the Sault market, which had been without an oldies station since the end of the former "Memories 105.5" WADW (now WMKD). WNBY-FM's current 50,000 signal allows the station to be heard throughout the eastern Upper Peninsula and far northern portions of the Lower Peninsula. "Oldies 93" began as a traditional oldies station playing hit music from the 1950s through the 1970s, but has evolved toward more of a classic hits direction as of the summer of 2012, dropping pre-Beatles music and adding many 1980s titles to its playlist. Oldies 93 temporarily drops its regular format for continuous Christmas music between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year, the only station in the Sault Ste. Marie area to do so.

Local on-air personalities at WNBY-FM include DJs Mark SanAngelo and Allison Miller (who are both also DJs at Sault Ste. Marie rock station WSUE), Alan Gibbs, and Travis Freeman, along with program host Lou Turco, and chief meteorologist Karl Bohnak. WNBY is a member of the Detroit Lions Radio Network and broadcasts all Detroit Lions NFL games to the Sault Ste. Marie radio market. The station also runs syndicated radio shows hosted by Dick Bartley on weekends, including Rock & Roll's Greatest Hits on Saturday nights and Classic Countdown on Sunday mornings. Locally produced programming includes The Weekend Club with Lou Turco on Saturday mornings and The Good Buy Shopping Hour on Wednesday mornings. Select playoff games from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds OHL hockey team are simulcast on WNBY as well.

References

WNBY-FM Wikipedia