WMTW-FM The station that is today WHOM
signed on the air July 9, 1958, as WMTW-FM. Along with
WMTW-TV (channel 8), which had signed on in 1954, WMTW-FM was owned by Mount Washington Television, an ownership group that included former Maine governor
Horace Hildreth. For most of its early years, WMTW-FM broadcast a
beautiful music format, featuring quarter-hour sweeps of mostly soft instrumentals, with limited talking and commercials. The WMTW stations were sold to
Jack Paar of
Tonight Show fame in 1963. Jack Paar, in turn, sold WMTW-FM-TV to Mid New York Broadcasting in 1967. In 1971, Mid New York sold WMTW-FM to Alpine Broadcasting while retaining the TV station. With the ownership change, the radio station switched its
call letters to WWMT in 1972, then to WMTQ in 1973, and then finally to the current WHOM in 1976. The station offered an
easy listening format consisting of instrumental versions of pop songs from artists like
Henry Mancini,
Ray Conniff,
Percy Faith,
Chet Atkins, and
Herb Alpert, as well as several soft vocals per hour like
The Carpenters,
Dionne Warwick,
Johnny Mathis, and
Perry Como. This format continued through the 1980s.
WHOM In January 1990, WHOM dropped the easy listening music for a
soft adult contemporary format, dubbed "soft and easy favorites" by the station. It continued to market itself as an easy listening station and retained its air staff. In the mid 1990s, the station began adding softer songs by
contemporary hit artists and began playing current product. By 2000, WHOM was more of a mainstream adult contemporary station. The station was sold to
Fuller-Jeffrey Broadcasting by Barnstable Broadcasting in 1996. Fuller-Jeffrey then sold most of its stations, including WHOM, to
Citadel Broadcasting in 1999. Citadel merged with
Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011. On August 30, 2013, a deal was announced in which
Townsquare Media would acquire 53 Cumulus stations, including WHOM, for $238 million. The deal was part of Cumulus' acquisition of
Dial Global; Townsquare and Dial Global were both controlled by
Oaktree Capital Management. The sale to Townsquare was completed on November 14, 2013. ==References==