94.5 WPST is a radio station located in Princeton, NJ, serving Central New Jersey and Philadelphia and it's suburbs.
The station's
format is Contemporary Hits, featuring artists like Katy Perry, Rihanna, Taylor
Swift, and Coldplay. WPST has a weekly audience of over 700,000
listeners, primarily located in Mercer, Burlington, Somerset, Middlesex,
Hunterdom, Camden and Ocean counties in NJ and Bucks County and the city of
Philadelphia in PA
WPST (94.5 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Top
40 (CHR) format. Licensed to Trenton, New
Jersey, USA, the station serves the Philadelphia, Central Jersey area. The
station is currently owned by Nassau Broadcasting Ii, LLC and features programming
from Westwood One. The transmitter is located in Fairless Hills Pennsylvania, on US-1.
94.5 in Trenton began on August 7, 1965 as WCHR with a religious format. But after 33 years,
that all changed when Nassau Broadcasting bought the station. November 10, 1997
saw the beginning of things to come when WCHR began to simulcast on 920 AM in
Trenton (see NJ AM Page 4) in preparation for a format change. On February 27,
1998, WCHR started stunting with construction sound effects and on March 2,
1998 94.5 became "New Jersey's Oldies Station." The WNJO calls were
assigned on March 26, 1998. On November 1, 2001, WNJO switched to a
classic hits format as "94.5 The Hawk." Calls changed to WTHK on August 1, 2002 - and slowly evolved into a
classic rock station. On February 14, 2005, at 5pm, 94.5 "switched"
frequencies and formats with 97.5 WPST. Forming 94.5 "PST"
"number one for today's hit music". Matt Sneed (current MD) was the
first voice on 94.5 WPST, while Chris Puorro was music director and Dave McKay
was program director at the time.
97.5 started life, initially on January 10, 1949,
then officially on April 19, 1949, as WTOA. It was owned by the Mercer
Broadcasting Company, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trenton Times newspaper. WTOA started out broadcasting from
3pm to 11pm, with an ERP of 14,500 watts. Its original
coverage area reached as far north as Brooklyn,
New York and as far west as Reading
Pennsylvania. 97.5 became WPST on September 13, 1971. The WPST calls originally
stood for "Passport Stereo Trenton," a slogan of the station at the
time. Also, the WPST calls were on a Miami TV station
now known as WPLG. WPST is known for its mainstream CHR format, which they've had for many years. Tom Taylor was the PD who
launched the format in the mid 1970s, and did mornings on the station until
1987. In August 1975, owner Herb Hobler hired Phil Gieger as the General
Manager. Along with Tom Taylor, they revamped the station and coined the
phrase, "From The Shore To The Poconos, The Best
Music Is On The FM 97.5 WPST." They initially established an Adult Rock format, and by the Fall of 1975, the station
took off and eventually became the number one station in the market. Some WPST
DJs over the years included Lee Tobin, John Mellon (aka Walt Ballard), Ed
Johnson, Doug James, John Brown, Eddie Davis, Trish Merelo, David Cooper, Andy
Gury, Jeff "Woody" Fife, Dan Kelly, Brian
Douglas, Mel Toxic, Kris Gamble, Jay Sorensen, Bob Sorrentino, Dave Hoeffel,
Tom Cunningham, Dave Moss, Michelle Stevens, Pat Gillen, Eric Johnson, Mark
Sheppard, Andre Gardner, Phil Simon, Mike Kaplan, Steve Trevelise, Joel Katz,
Rich DeSisto, Jason Barsky, Scott Lowe, Joe LeCompte,
Jeff Ryan, Gabrielle Vaughn and Chris
Puorro. Today's DJ's on WPST are Chris Rollins, Toni Ryan, Matt Sneed, Shinn, Wade, and Cameron. Caricatures of the WPST DJs, circa 1977, can be found here. On February
14, 2005, at 5pm, 97.5 "switched" frequencies and formats with 94.5 WTHK, and adopted its current adult Top 40 format. This officially "killed" the
hot adult contemporary format on Philadelphia’s WMWX, which became adult hits two months
later and the following year getting the current calls WBEN-FM. Neilson BDS & Midiabase still reported them as a contemporary hit radio station until 2008. The move left
WIOQ from Philadelphia as the only mainstream top 40 station in both
areas of Trenton & Wilmington, Delaware (served by WSTW). In August 2005, 97.5's city of license was
changed from Trenton to Burlington. Before moving closer to Philadelphia, the
97.5 transmitter was located in downtown Trenton, New Jersey. The tower from
which 97.5 broadcast is the tallest structure in the City of Trenton.
By 2011, the station
returned to contemporary hit radio per Mediabase & Neilsen BDS reports.
Matt
Sneed-Assistant Program Director and Music Director
When we initially set out to do this project, we decided to get in contact with 94.5 PST because it was a station that we both prefer to listen to while at school. We called to make an appointment to speak with a program director/manager/producer. After a lot of e-mails and phone calls we were given an appointment, unfortunately, on our way to our interview that day our interviewee called to cancel. We did not give up and after comparing our schedules we called back to set up another appointment. The station is extremely busy and it is very hard to get a hold of someone. When we showed up for our second appointment, the man we were initially going to interview was yet again unavailable but we were directed Matt Sneed’s way. We were so grateful to get a chance to speak with him, his job title also better aligned with our assignment than the initial interviewee’s did.
Matt is the Assistant Program Director
and Music Director at PST. He also hosts the afternoon show from 3-7 pm on
weekdays. Matt has been working at 94.5 for 10 years so far which he considers
a very lengthy time in the radio industry. He credits his career stability to
the longevity of PST. It has been around for 40 years and he does not think
they are going anywhere.
Matt starts his day at 11 a.m., at
this time he works for a few hours from home. He schedules music, takes calls
from record labels that want to present new talent and makes all necessary plans
for any upcoming events. When he gets into the station at 2 he ties up all the
loose ends until his show starts at 3. He is on air for four hours and his day
ends around 8 p.m. During the hours he is not being an on air DJ, Matt also
makes a lot of the commercials you will hear on PST. Also, Matt and other colleagues work contests
and promotional events all week long, especially on weekends. There is not much
down time for Matt, but he does like that he gets to sleep in.
Every winter and spring PST hosts
large concerts. This Winterwonderjam Matt was in charge of booking all of the
talents and much of the prep work. These are the more hectic periods of time
for PST. Matt explained to us that he has to look carefully at which artists
are hot at the time and he has to budget each talent wisely. For example, The
Wanted asked for $50,000 to play but Daughtry’s price was double that.
The room in which we had our interview
was nothing short of inspirational. It was a small, acoustically padded, modest
studio with about 10 chairs and a tiny area that would be considered a stage.
On the walls there were dozens of signed pictures. Every picture showed a
singer or band that had visited PST and played in that very room. Some made it
to the big time, and others we had never heard of. Record labels call up the
station saying they have a new talent they’ve got to hear. If PST likes how
they sound, they will play their song on the radio and let the audience decide
how they feel about the new artist. It was surreal to know that sensations such
as Adele, the Backstreet Boys and Uncle Kracker had been in the same room,
performing in hopes of putting themselves on the map.
According to Matt they do not have any
direct competition in the area but the closest competing station would be
102.1. He states that they have an advantage because a lot of top 40 stations
are now being syndicated, hosts like Elvis Duran and Ryan Seacrest can be heard
on a multitude of different frequencies. PST is unique in that they have their
own personalities and dj’s who are unique and set them apart from everyone
else. Their demographic is women ages 18-34, Matt states that is where are the
money is in terms of listeners who will actually go out to their events and
spend money.
By the FCC law stations are required
to do a certain amount of community programming. For PST this takes place every
Sunday morning at 6 a.m. Matt states that PST’s biggest weakness would probably
be their broad area range. Because they
have listeners in New York, Philly and all of Jersey they have to label
themselves as “Area’s #1 station” instead of targeting a specific state/region.
Their biggest strength, however, is their longevity. They’ve been around and consistent
for over 40 years and to Matt that is a huge accomplishment and he can only see
PST’s future as being bright.
Our interview with Matt was great, we
got to look around the station and really get a feel of what goes on at PST on
a normal day. Although it was a task actually getting to sit down and speak
with someone, it was definitely worth it. Their hectic schedules just made us
better understand the reality of our future careers. Matt explained that there
is very rarely a time when he is not busy or doing some sort of work for the
station but he loves what he does. He also explained that radio is all he
knows, he’s been at it since the age of 20 and simply wouldn’t know how to do
any other job. Some advice he did give us was to accept that we would be
starting at the bottom. Everyone does, whether it be at an entry level job or
as an intern. He also told us that in today’s job world we have to take
whatever we can get and work with it, most of the time we won’t even start out
getting paid. But, with hard work and dedication, we can work our way up in
rankings and maybe even one day be an on air personality like Matt.
