Madison to get new radio station
8:59 PM 7/01/03
Tom Alesia Wisconsin State Journal

A new Madison radio station on an unused frequency - 93.1 FM - will debut this month, but its format remains a secret.

Midwest Family Broadcasting will launch WHIT-FM, with signal tests beginning as soon as July 10.

WHIT will be the company's seventh Madison station and adds another competitor to the city's crowded FM radio dial.

Mark Van Allen, assistant program director at WMGN-FM ("Magic 98"), will handle programming duties for WHIT, and he said the station will begin without an on-air staff. DJs will be hired soon, Van Allen added, and WHIT will feature a local morning broadcast personality.

But don't expect an immediate splash from WHIT when it debuts.

"We'll dress up the station as time goes on over the first 60 to 90 days," said Tom Walker, Midwest Family Broadcasting president.

Walker added that keeping the format "under wraps" helps it in competition with other Madison stations.

"With formats being as close together as they are, if you know what a competitor's going to do, you can adjust and move to cover it," Walker said. "Even a week or two of notice allows you to adjust. Now the other stations will have to react to us."

WHIT's signal will reach Dane and Columbia counties. Madison offers formats ranging from "smooth jazz" to hard rock. An urban contemporary station, Janesville-based WKPO-FM "Hot 105.9," has made strides to reach the Madison hip-hop audience, but its signal crackles in certain parts of the city.

It's also possible WHIT could tweak a contemporary hits format to compete with WZEE-FM ("Z104"), which consistently ranks as one of Madison's most listened to stations. A spokesman at Clear Channel Communications in Madison, which owns "Z104," could not be reached.

WHIT arrives on the airwaves nearly eight years after Midwest Family Broadcasting received initial approval for the outlet by the Federal Communications Commission.

Midwest Family Broadcasting officials struggled for several years to find a spot in northeastern Madison to put its tower. Walker said the company reached an agreement to build its tower alongside one used by Christian outlet WNWC-AM (1190), off Interstate 94 at Highway N.

After the FCC granted Midwest Family Broadcasting the license for a new station in the mid-1990s, Walker thought it would be on the air between fall 1997 and fall 1998. Instead, the problem of finding a tower site grew because the station's license confined its tower placement to an area reserved largely for airplane traffic.

"It was a grind," Walker said.