The year 2007 in radio involved some significant events.
Events
January 8: Nanci "The Fabulous Sports Babe" Donnellan returns to radio after a six-year absence, filling in for local hosts in Florida.
February 12: Two radio stations in Guinea, FM Liberté and Radio Familia, are attacked and besieged by members of the presidential guard.[1]
February 5: In Baghdad, Iraqi police find the murdered body of Abduirazak Hashim Ayal al-Khakani, a journalist employed by the news service of Jumhuriyat al-Iraq radio.[2]
February 12: Rádio Trânsito begins broadcasting from São Paulo, Brazil.[3]
March 2: WMMS-HD2 (100.7-2 FM), a digital subchannel of Cleveland rock station WMMS, launches with a "classic alternative" format.[4]
March 3: A number of format changes are announced at Cumulus Media-owned radio stations in the Quad Cities. WXLP (96.9 FM) begins using its former moniker, 97X, and is reborn as a classic hits-leaning towards classic rock format. The active rock format that had been at WXLP since 2004 (as "97 Rock") is moved to KBOB-FM (104.9 FM), which is rebranded "Rock 104.9." The 104.9 FM frequency's country music format, which had been there since 2000 and associated with the call letters KBOB since 1994, is abandoned, leaving Cumulus without a country music station in the Quad-Cities market.[5]
March 6: Air America Radio restructures, with politician Mark J. Green and his brother Stephen Green at the helm. Among the changes (see also "Closures"):
June 12: Citadel Broadcasting's purchase of most ABC Radio assets closes, and restructuring takes place.
June 22: WKBF (1270 AM) of Rock Island, Illinois, flips from Christian talk (as "Truth 1270") to "La Pantera," a Spanish and Mexican music format, following the frequency's sale from Quad Cities Media to La Jefa Latino Broadcasting. The station's new format allows WKBF to become the first full-time Spanish-language radio station in the Quad Cities and stabilizes the station's format, which had changed several times since 1995.
June 29: Tom Kent resigns as host of his programs on the TKO Radio Network, the network he launched as a 24-hour network in the same year; he maintains ownership of the network and is replaced behind the microphone by John Landecker and Marty Thompson.
July 12: WCBS-FM 101.1 New York drops its Jack format after two years and returns to Oldies.
July 16: Mike and the Mad Dog becomes "nationally syndicated" with its first affiliate outside New York State, WQYK in Tampa, Florida. According to host Mike Francesa, more affiliates are in the works.
August 10: ABC Radio discontinues syndication of Larry Elder; his show continues on KABC in Los Angeles and reverts to a local show. All other affiliates are switched over to Mark Levin's show, also syndicated by ABC in the same time slot.
August 16: Ocean FM, broadcasting in the Cayman Islands, loses its operating licence.[7]
August 17: Dan Patrick leaves his position at ESPN Radio.
September 4: Russia's government appoints a new prosecutor to take forward the trial of the murderers of journalist Anna Politkovskaya the previous year.[9]
October 1: Patrick returns on KLAC in Los Angeles and syndicated through the Content Factory.
October 5: Long-time Pittsburgh CHR station "B94", returns to the air after flipping to rock (and later "male" talk) in 2004.
October 8:
WEXM (formerly WNOU) in Indianapolis, Indiana changes to Christmas music, the first station in the country to do so, as a "stunt format" for the next three months. The first non-stunting stations to change over were KCKC in Kansas City and KOSY-FM in Salt Lake City, for the second year in a row, on the evening of October 31, among several other stations.
WZOO flips from CHR to Classic Hits with a new branding, "Magic 102.5."[10][11]
October 11: Government-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar blames US-sponsored Radio Free Asia for inciting violent protest.[12]
October 26: It was announced that on November 3, WFUN would flip to ESPN Sports.[13][14]
Roger Hedgecock assumes a position as the host of a national weekly talk show.
November 7: Atlanta's WQXI opened their own 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) sports bar in downtown Atlanta.[19]
November 16: The bNet NZ Music Awards are held for the 10th and last time, at the Hopetoun Alpha in Auckland, New Zealand, hosted by Matt Heath and Chris Stapp.[20]
November 19: WIAU transforms from Classic Hits to Talk introducing syndicated hosts such as Dr. Laura.[21][22]
November 27: Colorado West Broadcasting, Inc. sells KGLN to MBC Broadcasting for $250,000.[23][24]
November 30:
WMRN changes dial position from 106.9 to 106.7 at 12PM.[25]
December: In the run-up to the 2007 Kenyan general election, the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation continues to campaign for the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, as do Citizen FM and other radio stations owned by Kibaki's associate, S. K. Macharia.[28]
December 5: Controversial radio host J. R. Gach leaves the Internet and the airwaves after a lawsuit involving comments he made in February 2006 is settled for nearly a million dollars.
WFTK drops the talk format, stunting the entire day with construction sounds. The next day, they debuted an alternative rock format branded as 96 Rock.[29][30][31]
WMRN changed formats from theme song stunting (before stunting, WMRN's format was country music) to alternative rock as "Radio 106.7" at 12PM.[32][33]
December 26: WIBC in Indianapolis, Indiana moves its news/talk format to 93.1 FM. The station's AM frequency flipped to sports as WFNI.
date unknown: Global Radio is founded by Ashley Tabor-King, backed by his father Michael Tabor, and purchases a network of FM stations, including the Heart and Capital networks, Classic FM, XFM, Choice FM, Gold and Chill[34]
January: Nepal Chautari, a topical live show, is launched, transmitted live through 58 FM Radio Stations across Nepal using the Ujyalo Satellite Channel of Communication Corner and CIN Channel.
February 20: The Tony Kornheiser Show. This is the day that Kornheiser returned to radio on WTWP (now WWWT) and XM 144 after his first stint on Monday Night Football. The show will go on hiatus June 30 as Kornheiser returns for one more season on MNF.
March: Filipinas, Ahora Mismo, daily cultural magazine show in Spanish
April 16: Q, Canadian arts magazine show, broadcast on CBC Radio One.[36]
April: Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik begins hosting a talk radio program, Lighting the Fires of Liberty on the We the People radio network.
May 17: San Francisco classic hits station KFRC is revived on 106.9 FM. The format had previously been on 99.7 FM until it switched to the Movin' format in September 2006.
June 25: The Phil Hendrie Show. Initially intended to be a more political and issues oriented program, the show quickly reverted to a format similar to its previous format.
August 23: Bob Grant. Grant's sudden return to the network came one day after the official announcement of his rehiring.
John Batchelor. October 7. Replaces Brian Whitman on WABC and returns to radio after his daily show, also on WABC (and later syndicated by ABC Radio), was cancelled in September 2006. Batchelor also debuts another three-hour show on KFI, dealing with the same topics, immediately after the WABC show.
Live on Sunday Night with Bill Cunningham. October 7. Replaces Matt Drudge on Premiere Radio Networks.
Michael Jackson. October 29. Debuts on KGIL in Los Angeles in his former time slot.
Endings
WWVA Jamboree/Jamboree USA'. January 6. The long-running country music show, which had aired since 1933 on WWVA/Wheeling, West Virginia, is canceled as the station streamlines its focus on its talk radio format. It will be revived in 2009 by crosstown talk station WKKX as WWVA's then-sister property Live Nation spins off the program - now renamed the Wheeling Jamboree - to a non-profit organization.
Free FM. In a series of moves beginning in May 2007, CBS Radio phased out the hot talk network by changing several stations' formats and rebranding most others.
Classical music station WFMR in Milwaukee ends 51 years on the air when the station flips to a smooth jazz format as WJZX June 26
Adventures in Good Music: Producer and distributor WCLV announced "with great regret" that it would broadcast and syndicate its last encore episode of Adventures in Good Music with Karl Haas on June 29, 2007.
July 1: Art Bell announces his retirement from weekend hosting, effective immediately, but will host occasional shows in the future.
July 2: Utawarerumono Radio, Japan's first Internet radio show, ends its run on the broadcast station Oto Izumi.
August 17: Greenstone Media. Women's talk network folds after slightly over a year on the air. The network only gained 8 affiliates in its short life.
Doug Hoerth. December 3. Renda Broadcasting, owners of WPTT in Pittsburgh, announce they are not renewing Hoerth's contract after a ten-year run as the station's morning and later afternoon host.
December 20 - After three years as "Diva 92.3" WDVW/New Orleans flips from Rhythmic/Dance to Adult Top 40 as "Mix 92.3."
John London's Inferno. December 25. The show failed in syndication due to a lack of affiliates.
Deaths
3 January: János Fürst, 71, Hungarian violinist and conductor, former member of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra[37]
^Carmen Cagnoni (September 15, 2007). "As marcas no dial". Portal de Comunicação (in Portuguese). UOL. p. 1. Archived from the original on June 17, 2016. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
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