City Sanford, Maine Frequency 92.1 MHz | Branding Classic Rock 92.1 | |
Broadcast area Portland, Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire areas Slogan Your Classic Rock Station First air date October 10, 1975 (as WSME-FM) | ||
WXEX-FM (92.1 FM) is a radio station licensed to Sanford, Maine, USA, the station serves the Portland, Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire areas. The station is currently licensed to Aruba Capital Holdings (based in Newburyport, Massachusetts) and currently simulcasts with WXEX 1540 AM from Exeter.
Contents
History
The station originally went on the air October 10, 1975 as WSME-FM, with an automated Drake/Chenault adult contemporary/oldies hybrid format. Later in 1986, WSME-FM became WCDQ, well known for its on-air staff, as well as creative programming. One such program was "Dead Tracks", an all-Grateful Dead program broadcast on Thursday nights at 10 PM. Another program was "Blue Monday", featuring all Blues music hosted by "The First Lady of Mt. Rialto" Sharon Small. Two other groundbreaking programs were "Mt. Rialto Redemption" a Reggae music show and "Local Chords" an opportunity for local, unsigned bands to get their material played on the radio hosted by Steve Biron, who also did afternoons. The show would later be hosted by Pete Casper "The Friendly DJ".
The station claimed that it broadcast from "The Summit of Mt. Rialto", a reference to the common name for movie theaters, popular in the 1930s through the '50s. It was sometimes called Mt. Rialto Radio. Another fictional locale often referenced by the station was "The Elegante Ballroom", a cavernous hall from which the station's lunch time show was supposedly broadcast. The ruse of the station's broadcast locale was so well done (complete with summit ski and weather reports) that occasionally students from the University of New Hampshire would travel to Sanford with the intent of hiking the fictitious mountain.
The weekend's arrival was heralded every Friday at 5 PM by playing "Switchin' To Glide" by The Kings.
The secondary tag line for the radio station was "The Theater of the Mind". This was based on the fact that WCDQ produced its own original radio plays, similar to "The Shadow" and "The Lone Ranger" radio shows from the 1930s and 1940s, before televisions were a common household item. WCDQ staff wrote original plays, together with original music, and performed them on the air. Radio plays included a Christmas story entitled "The Miracle of Mt. Rialto", a 1950s high school drama called "Young Lust", and a soap opera-style story called "The Web of Fate".
The station was owned by Donald Crown, who sold the station to Phoenix Media/Communications Group. It became WPHX-FM and began simulcasting WFNX, from the Boston, Massachusetts, radio market in the summer of 1999. Phoenix Media/Communications Group announced a sale of the station to Aruba Capital Holdings, licensee of WXEX in Exeter, New Hampshire, in May 2011. In August 2011, Aruba Capital Holdings took over the station and switched it to its current simulcast with WXEX.
On April 14, 2015, Port Broadcasting LLC, owner of WWSF in Sanford, ME and WNBP in Newburyport, MA (and their respective FM translators) began operating WXEX and its AM simulcast partner in Exeter under a local marketing agreement.
On August 20, 2015, WXEX-FM and its sister AM station shifted their format from classic hits to classic rock, branded as "Classic Rock 92.1".
On August 31, 2015, the WXEX stations merged with the Port Broadcasting stations and Garrison City Broadcasting's WTSN and WBYY to form Coastal Radio Partners, with Port Broadcasting assuming immediate oversight of all stations in the partnership.
Former DJs
Two photographs from the end of days of Mount Rialto:
http://www.timepassagesnostalgia.com/rontoth/wcdqparty1.jpg
http://www.timepassagesnostalgia.com/rontoth/wcdqparty2.jpg