and broadcasts from a tower mounted on the roof of the Ross Pavilion at the Hudson River Psychiatric Center in Poughkeepsie.
History
The 96.1 frequency was granted as a construction permit in 1995 to
The Greaseman
in mornings and ABC's "MR-35" format the rest of the day.
Two months after WNSX signed on, Richard Novik sold his station cluster to Straus Media and the future of the format began to unravel. The X did not fit in with the country-oriented Straus strategy and the station flipped to country as ("Thunder Country")WTND'. WNSX did quite well for a new signal in its only book on the air, but it was too late to turn back.
Being mostly satellite-fed (
Hot Adult Contemporary "The Cat"WCTJ on August 9, 1999 after a weekend of stunting with clips from the WCTW/Hudson Bob & Sheri
morning show.
Initially, WCTJ was to be a simulcast of sister station
Delilah
(heard in Poughkeepsie on WRNQ). Balancing the two different markets and keeping everything running was problematic and WCTJ's ratings and revenue remained weak in relation to the work needed for the simulcast.
Straus Media sold its stations to
KissFM
brand.
96.1 KISS-FM logo from December 22, 2000 to October 11, 2014
In March 2005, WFKP/Ellenville dropped the Kiss-FM format amid dismal ratings and flipped to a virtual simulcast of WRNQ Poughkeepsie's LiteFM format. The change had no effect on WPKF's Dutchess County ratings.
Instability and many changes were still to come. In September 2005, Kiss added Matt Bosso as afternoon host, but he moved on shortly afterwards to join the then-syndicated Wake Up with Whoopi in August 2006. 2007 brought more changes to Kiss as programmer Jimi Jamm left radio to embark on a career in music promotion. Aaron McCord became Kiss-FM's 3rd PD, but left music programming responsibilities to CJ McIntyre. Then in 2008, yet more changes came to the station, with morning/APD CJ McIntyre becoming Program Director while continuing to host "CJ's Playhouse. Still more changes in late 2009 saw CJ's Playhouse come to end and Clear Channel's syndicated "Elvis Duran & The KISS-FM Morning Show" replaced local programming, as did the satellite-delivered Ryan Seacrest national program middays, Chris Marino afternoons (as well as being named Program Director and Music Director), Fuzzy & Choco at night. CJ was moved to WRWD's morning show.
Then in January 2011, Chris Marino left WPKF to do the morning show on WBWZ, and Fuzzy moved to Afternoons for a short time and Choco became the night DJ, with a 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. overlap with both Fuzzy & Choco.
In September 2011, WPKF fired local air talent except Chris Marino and succumbed to Clear Channel Radio's
Premium Choice
programming format with pre-recorded DJs from other markets, and eliminated locally programmed music in favor of programming from corporate headquarters in San Antonio, Texas.
