WJUN (AM)

WJUN
City Mexico, Pennsylvania
Broadcast area Lewistown, Pennsylvania
Branding ESPN Radio 1220
Frequency 1220 kHz
Format Sports
Power 1,000 watts day
46 watts night
Class D
Facility ID 62369
Affiliations ESPN Radio
Owner Starview Media, Inc.

WJUN is a sports radio station in the Lewistown, Pennsylvania, market. The station is owned by Starview Media, Inc.

The station was started by Lewistown Broadcasting under the name Juniata-Perry Broadcasting Co. Lewistown Broadcasting owned WMRF (1490), WLTN-FM (97.9) and had majority ownership of WJSW-AM 1290 and WJSW-FM (100.1) Altoona, PA. WJUN-AM signed on with 250 Watts in September, 1955. Staff were DJs Don Lorenz, Tim Palm, Manager Ralph Parker and Engineer Ken Callahan. As a small market station (one of the smallest in PA at the time) the station had very little budget, so all equipment was used. The Studio equipment was from the former WLTN-FM, Lewistown, PA which the company had recently discontinued and returned the License. Tower and Transmitter were from WJSW, Altoona which had merged with WVAM after a fire destroyed the WVAM facility in 1951.

In 1957 the power was increased to 1000 Watts. In 1970 Presunrise operation at 500 Watts was authorized. After the FCC authorized nighttime operation for many daytime AM station WJUN began nighttime coverage of sports events in 1986.

For the first 25 years it ran a MOR (middle of the road) format and block programming consisting of country (6 - 7 am, 11 - 12 AM), Gospel 12:45 - 1:00 PM + weekends) Easy listening (5 PM - Sign off), Polka (12:30 - 1:00 PM Sunday) plus paid religion weekdays, weekends. Add to that mix Phillies Baseball, Mutual News and the local obituary column.

In 1977 the station was sold to Mid-State Broadcasting, owned by Richard (Bat) Lyons and Bill Berry, both former employees of WKVA, Lewistown, PA. During their ownership they modernized much of the equipment and moved the format to a more mainstream Adult-Contemporary and discontinued the block programming. The format included Country hits in rotation but in the era of "urban cowboy" it played well.

The FCC opened an FM allocation in 1986, which Mid-State applied for and was granted in 1987 for a Class A FM on 92.5. However they lacked the funds to construct the permit, so the station and CP were sold to Starview media who signed on WJUN-FM in July 1988. WJUN-AM soon began running a country gospel format, switching to ESPN Radio several years later.

External links

Coordinates: 40°32′06″N 77°20′26″W / 40.53500°N 77.34056°W / 40.53500; -77.34056


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