Classic rock station WTPA wants fans to 'like' it as a hedge against format change
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 3:26 PM    Updated: Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 9:45 PM

By DAVID N. DUNKLE, The Patriot-News

Since she was a young woman, Lisa Knotts Wiley has been a fan of classic rock station WTPA-FM 92.1, sticking with it through changes in lineups and even radio frequencies over the years. She remembers tuning in for the long-running “Coffey and the Jammer” morning show and attending station-sponsored concerts at Harrisburg's City Island to hear rock bands such as Aerosmith, ZZ Top and Poison.

“I still listen to it,” Wiley, a Mechanicsburg resident, said. “I don’t want it to be sold. I don’t want them to change the format.”

Both could happen, because WTPA, long known as the Rock of Central PA, is for sale and a new owner could change the format. That’s one reason program director and morning announcer Chris Tyler has launched a campaign to get WTPA fans to register their support for the station’s classic rock format.

Fans like Wiley are being asked to “like” the station on its Facebook page, and an electronic petition drive is being contemplated. “The station could be sold tomorrow to a group that changes the format,” Tyler said. “After 32 years as a heritage rock station, we don’t want that to happen. We are just trying to get the word out that we may need listeners’ help.”

WTPA, which now bills itself as “Central PA’s Only Independent Rock Station” on Facebook, has avoided playing musical chairs with its format far longer than most stations. “WTPA is the longest running rock station in central Pennsylvania,” Tyler said. “We think it would be a tragedy if they were to blow it up and do something different.”

WTPA’s current situation is complicated. Formerly owned by Cumulus Media Inc., it is one of two local stations - the other being former Citadel Broadcasting country station WCAT-FM 102.3 in Carlisle — left in trusteeship following a 2011 merger between Cumulus and Citadel. Cumulus, with 570 stations in 150 markets, is the second largest owner of radio stations in the country, trailing only Clear Channel Communications.

Although Cumulus receives profits from both stations in the wake of the Citadel deal, they are operated as independent stations under the trusteeship of Potential Broadcasting LLC. The decision to sell the stations was made in a deal with federal regulators in order to meet FCC limitations on media ownership in a given market. “Part of the order from the Department of Justice was that we had to sell WTPA,” said Ron Giovanniello, vice president and market manager of Cumulus’s Harrisburg-York-Lancaster market. “Cumulus still owns the stations until they transfer (to a new owner), but we don’t operate them.”

Efforts to sell WTPA and WCAT, better known as Red 102.3, are ongoing, according to Eddie Esserman, a Georgia resident who operates Potential Broadcasting. They could be sold together or separately, he said. “All offers are being considered,” Esserman said. He declined to name an asking price, but said WTPA is the more valuable property of the two.

Esserman thinks Tyler’s efforts to promote the station’s classic rock heritage are not simply a publicity stunt. “It’s different from the rug store that is always going out of business,” he said. “It’s all true, yet very creative and very promotional. It’s a great way to involve listeners.”

Tyler said he just wants WTPA fans like Wiley to know what they stand to lose. “We don’t have some big corporation running us anymore,” he said. “They have kind of homogenized radio stations. But Big Brother isn’t looking over our shoulder right now.”