Branding The River 97.3 First air date June 1946 | Slogan "Real. Rock. Variety." | |
City Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Broadcast area South Central Pennsylvania Frequency 97.3 MHz (also on HD Radio) | ||
WRVV (97.3 FM, "The River 97.3") is a commercial FM radio station licensed to serve Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The station is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. and broadcasts a classic rock format. The station's studios are located at 600 Corporate Circle, Harrisburg and its antenna is on the WHP-TV broadcast tower located on Blue Mountain in Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County at (40°20′43.1″N 76°52′8.3″W). Its slogan is "Real. Rock. Variety."
History
The station signed on for the first time in June 1946 under ownership of WHP, Inc, who also owned WHP (AM). As such, it simulcast WHP programming about 50% of the time, with the remainder of the broadcast day devoted to musical instrumentals and other "Musak" type material. The station's format evolved to Beautiful music, which would continue until 1990.
In February 1990, the station switched call signs to WXBB and its format to Contemporary Hit Radio as "B97.3". The station switched call signs back to WHP-FM and the format back to Beautiful music in December 1990.
In 1992 the station was sold to Dame Media (along with sister station WHP) and studios were moved out of the WHP-TV building to a new location at 600 Corporate Circle, Harrisburg. The call sign was changed to WRVV in March 1992, the station's branding to "The River 97.3" (the first station in the country to be branded as "The River"), the format to Rock Adult Contemporary (Rock AC) and the slogan to "Rock and Roll without the Hard Edge". The station's new Operations Manager at the time, Chris Tyler, created the format.
The Dame Media stations including WRVV were sold to Clear Channel Communications in 1999. The format changed to classic rock after the sale. In the mid-2000s, the station changed its slogan to "Real. Rock. Variety."
In 2004, WRVV and WNNK-FM were the first stations in Harrisburg to begin using HD Radio.
WRVV and WNNK-FM frequently trade the number one spot in the Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle Radio Market Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) Ratings since the mid-1990s.