Branding Power 800 AM/102.9 FM | ||
City Lawrence, Massachusetts Broadcast area Lawrence, Massachusetts Slogan "¿Donde esta tu Música?" (Where is your Music?) Frequency 800 kHz (also on HD Radio) Translator(s) W275BH (102.9, Lawrence) | ||
WNNW (800 AM; "Power 800 AM/102.9 FM") is a radio station licensed to serve Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA. The station is owned by Costa-Eagle Radio Ventures, LP, a partnership between Pat Costa and his chief investor, the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. It airs a Spanish Tropical music format. The station is also heard on a translator at 102.9 FM, W275BH; this frequency is oriented to Lawrence and Lowell, while the AM signal is oriented to Boston.
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History
The 800 kHz frequency in Lawrence first went on the air in August 1947 as the original home of WCCM, owned by Lawrence Broadcasting Company. An FM sister station, WGHJ (93.7 FM) was launched in April 1960 as a full-time simulcast of WCCM; three years later, the stations were sold to Curt Gowdy, who changed WGHJ's call letters to WCCM-FM that year, before fully separating 93.7 from the WCCM simulcast as WCGY in 1974. By then, WCCM had a middle-of-the-road format, with some talk and Spanish programming.
After Curt Gowdy sold WCGY (now WEEI-FM) to American Radio Systems in 1994, WCCM was put up for sale. However, a buyer was not found until 1997, when Costa-Eagle agreed to purchase the station. Soon after taking over a year later, Costa-Eagle shifted the station from adult standards to adult contemporary The following year, WCCM began marketing itself to the Lowell area, after WLLH (1400 AM) was sold and converted to Spanish-language programming; the station opened a Lowell studio, hired several former WLLH personalities (including news anchor Bob Ellis), and began carrying Lowell Spinners baseball, which had previously aired on WLLH. The station also began shifting back to standards, replacing satellite talk programming from Talk America with Music of Your Life a few months later. The Lowell studio was closed in 2002 after the station gradually phased out its use. WCCM also phased out much of its music programming in favor of increased talk programming, with local talk programming during the day and sports radio programming from ESPN Radio during evenings, nights, and weekends.
The station was assigned the WNNW call letters on August 29, 2002 as part of a larger shuffle that resulted in WNNW moving its Spanish tropical format from 1110 AM and WCCM moving to 1490 AM, taking WHAV off-the-air in favor of WCEC, which took over 1110 AM with WHAV's former programming. The changes formally took effect on-air that September.
In 2008, Pat Costa received Radio Ink Magazine's Medallas de Cortez Award for General Manager of the Year. Later that year, Costa-Eagle purchased W275BH (102.9 FM), a construction permit for a translator in Newton, New Hampshire. Costa-Eagle moved it to 92.1 FM in Lawrence in 2009 (thereby changing its call letters to W221CH). and put it on the air that March as a repeater of WNNW. In June 2011, the translator was moved to 102.9 FM (reclaiming the W275BH call letters) due to interference complaints from WFEX and WPHX-FM.