Iconic Radio Brand Back In Birmingham

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Almost 40 years ago, WSGN-AM left Birmingham, Alabama. That all changes July 31 when the brand returns to 98.3 FM with music from the 60’s and 70’s.

“When the WSGN call letters became available again, we jumped at the opportunity to preserve them for future use closer to their first home,” said Lee Perryman, President/CEO of RadioAlabama. “We are also targeting an older, affluent, and influential demographic group that is otherwise underserved and underappreciated, while also building on multigenerational popularity from the station’s most impactful period. Almost 62% of adults in the vast coverage area are ages 45+.”

As Birmingham’s second radio station in 1926 and the magic city’s first Top 40 station beginning in 1955, what became WSGN-AM was a market leader for decades and one of the top rock and roll stations in the country. Sold to the Birmingham News in 1934, its later call letters stood for “South’s Greatest Newspaper”.

The relaunch includes many of the station’s most memorable and powerful jingles that were recreated by SonoJingles in the United Kingdom and singers in Dallas. The new WSGN logo is based on a xylophone key version from the 1960s.

1 COMMENT

  1. This station is in a small town 40 miles away from Birmingham and does not even have a signal that reaches the Birmingham metro where WSGN reigned supreme. The Sylacauga station does not have ANY personalites , promotions, or any of the imaging that listeners remember from 50 years ago. It is a loosely run automated oldies station with a jingle package, ABC network news fed through reverb (eek!), and poorly produced local commercials, The station has call letters that are only familiar to Alabama radio Top 40 listeners over the age of 65. Sadly it is a reminder that the art of true personality Top 40 radio has evaporated and the owners and programmers that understood it have left our industry. The WSGN brand was iconic in the 1960’s and 1970’s but the people involved with this launch clearly either don’t understand what made the station successful all those years ago, or think a hollow interpretation done at a minimal (cheap) level in a small town will at least get a little press in their town. Some radio industry people yearn for a return to iconic stations that the older audience remembers fondly but the multitude of audience options today usually doom these low budget call letter “revivals”…..especially when the classic “muscle car” has a golf cart motor.

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