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Milwaukee's 94.5 FM retakes WKTI callsign, flips to Country


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Interesting news in Milwaukee radio. For years, 94.5 WKTI (then owned by Journal Broadcasting) was the powerhouse CHR station in the region, and possibly one of the best known stations in Milwaukee. Their logo was everywhere. Slowly through the 90s, their star faded, and others like Entercom's 103.7 WXSS "Kiss-FM" took over as the top CHR station. Eventually, WKTI flipped to "Variety Hits" WLWK "The Lake," basically a random-play iPod.

 

Yesterday, Scripps (the new owner of 94.5) flipped the callsign back to WKTI, but this time, the station is playing "today's Country" music. The logo is a variant of the old WKTI logo, and the jingles are reminiscent of the 80s and 90s era WKTI. They're promising aggressively local broadcasting.

 

The two storylines that I find interesting about this:

- Milwaukee is also home to iHeartMedia's 106.1 FM WMIL. This station is regularly the top rated station in the region (last book had them at a 10.1) and is a multiple-time nominee for the ACM "Radio Station of the Year - Large Market" award. I find it rather brave to target a top station like that, but I applaud the move.

- Immediately following the flip from WLWK to WKTI, Magnum Broadcasting flipped their country station 92.1 WMKQ "Q92 Country" to "The Lake" and the same Variety Hits format that WLWK used to. Their website now uses the same logo as Journal/Scripps "The Lake" used to, and the same tagline "It's all about the variety." Things that make you go hmm....

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- Immediately following the flip from WLWK to WKTI, Magnum Broadcasting flipped their country station 92.1 WMKQ "Q92 Country" to "The Lake" and the same Variety Hits format that WLWK used to. Their website now uses the same logo as Journal/Scripps "The Lake" used to, and the same tagline "It's all about the variety." Things that make you go hmm....

 

It just shows you how much the Milwaukee area loved listening to variety hits and loved listening to The Lake.
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Interesting move. I think it's a mistake to associate their former CHR format's branding with "Today's Country", but we'll see how listeners react...

 

Journal/Scripps has several "Today's Country" formatted stations around the US, so they should know what they're doing.

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