As a commercial station WLKW signed on in 2011, initially with an "-FM" suffix attached to its call sign, as
an AM station in Rhode Island also held the call sign at the time. Until March 14, 2016,
News Talk 95.3 The Lake aired
Fox News Radio reports at the top of each hour and local news reports at the bottom of each hour. Its daytime programming came from the
Premiere Networks talk network (
Glenn Beck Program,
The Rush Limbaugh Show,
The Sean Hannity Show), with secondary programming sources including
Talk Radio Network (
The Savage Nation on weeknights and select weekend programming),
Cox Radio/
Dial Global (tape-delay airings of
Neal Boortz and
Clark Howard), and
Cumulus Media Networks (overnight programs
John Batchelor and
Red Eye Radio). The station's owner at its launch was
Cross Country Communications, a company majority owned by the Rowbotham family of Rhode Island. On March 14, 2016, WLKW began airing programming from
CBS Sports Radio. Beck and Hannity (but not Limbaugh, despite all three sharing the same distributor) were carried over from the previous lineup and continued to air on the station.
Sale to Educational Media Foundation In August 2018, Cross Country announced plans to exit the Jamestown radio market. Under the terms of the sale, Media One Group, the owners of all other commercial radio stations in Jamestown, would purchase sister station
WKZA. To comply with ownership caps, WLKW-FM would instead be spun off to
Educational Media Foundation, which would introduce its
K-Love contemporary Christian music format to the region, entering a crowded Christian music field against locally originated competitors such as
Family Life Network and
Dove FM. The sale to EMF closed on October 31, 2018, at which time the -FM suffix was dropped. ==References==