City Waterville, Maine Branding Kool AM 1490 Frequency 1490 kHz | Broadcast area Kennebec County, Maine Slogan Where Legends Live | |
First air date June 19, 1946 (1946-06-19) | ||
WTVL (1490 AM; "Kool AM 1490") is a radio station licensed to serve Waterville, Maine, United States. The station, established in 1946, is owned by Townsquare Media and broadcasts an adult standards format.
Contents
Map of Waterville, ME, USA
History
WTVL went on the air June 19, 1946 as an ABC affiliate owned by Kennebec Broadcasting Company. An FM sister station went on the air March 26, 1968 at 98.3 FM, simulcasting WTVL's programming. By 1973, WTVL had a middle of the road format and was carrying the ABC Entertainment network. In 1984, the station shifted to an adult contemporary format. The following year, WTVL changed to a nostalgia format programmed separately from the FM station, which had moved to 98.5 FM and became adult contemporary station WDBX. In 1987, WDBX returned to the WTVL-FM call sign, and the two stations resumed simulcasting with a classic hits format.
E.H. Close, owner of WPNH AM-FM in Plymouth, New Hampshire and WKNE AM-FM in Keene, New Hampshire, bought WTVL and WTVL-FM from Kennebec Broadcasting for $1.29 million in 1988. By 1990, the stations had changed to a soft rock format. In 1993, WTVL-FM became country music station WEBB; the simulcast on WTVL continued, even though the AM call letters were not changed.
Pilot Communications bought WTVL and WEBB for $450,000 in 1994. Pilot's radio stations were acquired by Citadel Broadcasting in 1999 as part of its purchase of parent company Broadcasting Partners Holdings. In January 2003, Citadel ended WTVL's simulcast of WEBB and switched the station to an adult standards format, simulcast with sister station WEZW (1400 AM, now WJZN) in Waterville under the "Kool" branding. The call letters were changed to WODJ on November 26, 2004; on December 8, the WTVL call sign returned.
Citadel merged with Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011. Townsquare Media acquired Cumulus' Augusta-Waterville stations in 2012. The simulcast with WJZN ended on July 14, 2016, when that station changed to a classic rock format.