106.7 WAMO Off Air - "That's Just Ludacris" (flcikr photo by mhwolk)

Regardless of your personal music preference, it cannot be denied that WAMO 106 Jamz has been a part of Pittsburgh’s culture for a long long time. Back in 1960, WAMO was launched on 105.9 (hence the name “106 Jamz W.A.M.O.”) and “had the most powerful signal coverage in Western Pennsylvania“.

If you were a WAMO listener, or Howard Stern fan, then you know that 1998 brought big changes to radio in Pittsburgh. At that point, WAMO moved to 106.7 and WXDX took over 105.9 – probably because they wanted the most possible coverage for ratings leader Howard Stern.

Ever since WAMO moved to 106.7, the reception was terrible and the brand went downhill from there. It was so bad that they even put WAMO on a second station, 107.1, to try to make up for the lost signal (which never seemed to make much of a difference). There were no more Friday nights with Nick Nice, the Quiet Storm wasn’t what it used to be, and the DJs started to sound like very bad imitations of NYC radio personalities.

In the middle of May 2009, the Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation informed the public that they would be selling WAMO. “St. Joseph Missions” acquired the stations for about 9 million dollars and will begin broadcasting gospel style music by February 2010.

According to the WAMO Wikipedia page: “At 6:07PM EST on Tuesday, September 8, 2009, WAMO-FM discontinued broadcasting. Its last song was Boyz II Men‘s “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday“, and then silence.”

Notice on the WAMO website

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