City Rossford, Ohio Frequency 1520 kHz | Branding Urban Family Talk Translator(s) 92.1 W221BG (Toledo) | |
Broadcast area Toledo metropolitan area Slogan Truth Wisdom Empowerment | ||
WPAY (1520 AM) is a Christian Talk formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Rossford, Ohio, serving the Toledo metropolitan area. The station is owned and operated by the Educational Media Foundation.
History
1520 kHz in Toledo, Ohio has a long and storied past. In the late 1960s, 1520 was known as WTTO (Weetow 15 copying WKNR Detroit's Keener 13 logo)- a Top 40 station to compete with WOHO, and WTOD Toledo and CKLW, Windsor, Ontario. It featured D.J.s such as Rick Randall, James K. Davis aka Big Jim Edwards of CKLW fame, Peter Tripp, Bill Webb, Lee Fowler, Gary Calvert. The station had its studios on the top floor of the Commodore Perry building in Downtown Toledo. In the 1970s, the station adopted the call sign WTUU and featured modern country music as "Fun Country W15-2", headed as program director by longtime Toledo air personality, London Mitchell. Later incarnations included an all news radio format with the call letters WANR (often simulcast with WJR in Detroit), an urban music format with the call letters WVOI, and a religious format that featured a daily "Radio Rosary" with the calls WGOR. Another call sign change came along, then later the calls were changed to WDMN with the Cornerstone Church (Toledo) ownership. WDMN's calls led some in the area to joke that the calls stood for "Demon", but they actually stood for "Dominion." WDMN was chiefly an Urban Gospel station until April 2008 but had a brief stint with a mainstream contemporary Christian format until sister station 96.9 WNKL launched with K-LOVE.
The station was unusual in that it had two different transmitter and tower sites for many years, located in two different states. Daytime broadcasts were from the transmitter and towers located at 6695 Jackman Road in Bedford Township, Michigan, and nighttime broadcasts were from a straight row of 6 towers (parallel to I-75 near the Ohio Turnpike) in Perrysburg Township, Ohio. The daytime site also served as the main studio and office building for many years. The current site is also in Perrysburg Township, but Southeast of the original decaying tower array.
In April 2008, Toledo-area listeners reported that WDMN had ended its "Dominion 1520" format and replaced it with a combination of progressive and conservative talk radio programming, traditional and smooth jazz, and some sports programming. This station was also an affiliate of CNN. Whether this is a stunt or indicative of a permanent programming direction for the station had been unclear; however, on July 1, 2008, the station changed its call letters to WNWT.
On January 22, 2009, it was announced that Educational Media Foundation had purchased WNWT. On April 23, 2009, WNWT dropped its talk format for a full-time simulcast of K-LOVE.
On April 26, 2014, WNWT became an affiliate of Urban Family Talk.
The station changed its call sign to WPAY on March 15, 2017.