Broadcast area Southern New Hampshire ERP 14,500 watts Frequency 95.7 MHz Format Adult contemporary music Area New Hampshire Slogan Today's Variety | Audience share 20.8 (Fa'07, R&R) HAAT 282 meters (925 ft) City of license Manchester Owner Saga Communications Branding 95.7 WZID | |
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Repeater(s) 94.1 W231BR (Manchester, relays HD2)
103.1 W276BJ (Concord, relays HD3) First air date October 2, 1947 (as WKBR-FM) | ||
Wzid station of the year 2015
WZID (95.7 FM) is an American radio station with an Adult contemporary music format. WZID is located at 500 Commercial Street in Manchester, New Hampshire. Its signal can be heard as far south as Route 128 in Massachusetts, as far east as southern Maine and as far west as Vermont. WZID transmits in HD Digital.
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History
The station was born October 2, 1947 as WKBR-FM. Throughout the 1960s, and very early 1970s, WKBR-FM simulcasted the Top 40 format of WKBR-AM 1250, providing that station with significant extended coverage. In July 1971, WKBR-FM became WZID, and the format was flipped to Beautiful music. In the 1980s, instrumental easy listening music was scaled back, with soft vocal hits added, to the point where the station evolved into an Adult Contemporary station. In October 1990, Sunshine Broadcasting of New Hampshire Inc. announced the sale of WZID and 1370 WFEA (AM) to Saga Communications Inc. of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan. The sale was finalized April 16, 1991. Saga Communications of New England LLC operates the station today. WZID's President and General Manager is Raymond Garon.
Translators
WZID used to be heard on translator station, W270AH 101.9 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. However in 2008, Saga Communications filed a series of minor translator applications which moved the translator into the Keene radio market as W276CB, a translator of Saga radio station WKNE's HD3 Channel as "Kool 103.1" (now "WINK Classic Country 103.1FM"). Up until mid-January 2009, WZID had two more translators, W231BR 94.1 in Manchester at 250 watts and W276BJ 103.1 in Concord, also at 250 watts, but in January 2009 those two translators were turned into the new "Hot Hits 94.1 and 103.1", a simulcast of WZID's HD-2 channel, which is a top 40 station broadcasting Dial Global's Hits Now! format; branding themselves as the new hit music station in New Hampshire. Saga Communications obviously had been planning this out for some time because both the translator's power was recently increased from low power to 250 watts. This station somewhat poses as a threat to WJYY and even WFTN-FM, but has an inferior signal compared to the two. Saga was able to open up this new station due to a loophole in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that allows HD sub-channel stations to be repeated on translators. Recently, Hot Hits increased its power on 94.1 to give coverage improvements to the Keene, Portsmouth and Lowell areas. On December 11, 2013, WZID-FM was granted permission to implement its 94.1 W231BR-FM translator's HAAT increase up to 18 meters (59 feet) (although the ERP of would remain at 250 Watts), to improve 94.1 W231BR-FM's coverage of surrounding communities (such as Keene, Portsmouth and Lowell).
Beginning in mid July 2015, WZID began simulcasting sister station WFEA - AM 1370 on its HD-3 channel which in turn is broadcast on newly purchased 110 watt translator W260CF serving the greater Manchester area from its tower on Mt. Uncanoonuc in Goffstown at 99.9 FM.
On February 1, 2017 WZID's HD-3 sub channel changed their format from the WFEA simulcast to Classic country, branded as "103.1 The Outlaw" (simulcast on FM translator W276BJ 103.1 FM Concord).