Cumulus Debuts 'Nash FM' at NYC's 94.7 FM (Updated)

Cumulus Media debuts "Nash FM 94.7" at its newly acquired WRXP-FM, New York. "Nash FM 94.7," being billed as "America's Country Station," debuted at 9:47am this morning (Jan. 21) on the former WFME-FM, purchased from Family Radio. The station, licensed to Newark, NJ, obtained the WRXP call letters as Cumulus officially closed on its purchase and began operating it as part of the company's New York City cluster which includes WABC-AM and WPLJ-FM. "Nash FM 94.7" will, as expected, be the flagship of a new national Cumulus Country brand using the "Nash" name. This returns the Country format to the number one market for the first time in more than 16 years when WYNY-FM ended the format at 103.5 FM and became WKTU-FM. The new "Nash" is online at NashFM947.com, and the previous stunt url (947fmnewyork.com) also redirects to the new "Nash" site. The debut of the Country format at 94.7 FM follows stunting with "The New York City Wheel Of Formats" featuring a one-hour loop of content from a wide variety of formats, although one format was notably missing – Country. That stunting ended just before 9:47am, when listeners heard "there's one thing missing." Among liner slogans being used for the new format are "The World’s Biggest Country Station" and "Country For Life." The first two songs aired with the flip were Randy Houser's "This Is How Country Feels" and Alan Jackson's "Gone Country." The stunt production and imaging were prepared at Cumulus Media's WLS-FM, Chicago, and brought to New York by Cumulus SVP of Corporate Programming Jan Jeffries who oversaw the launch of the new national Country brand at its new flagship station. That "New York City Wheel Of Formats" largely emphasized the Big Apple with songs such as Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" and Alicia Keys' "Empire State Of Mind" among others from various genres. The new 94.7 FM website tells visitors "Nash FM" is "dedicated to bringing you the best, newest and most exciting country artists on the planet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We're more than country – we're Country for Life."

Don't be surprised if the WRXP call letters are proved to have only been temporary. Sources say those calls were used only as a decoy until the new "Nash" was officially unveiled, because Family Radio retained the WFME call letters. Cumulus owns WNSH-FM, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area -- and those calls may soon be at 94.7 in the New York City market.

UPDATE: Cumulus has now confirmed that "Nash FM 94.7" will soon have the WNSH call letters, and that the new brand will indeed be a national one. Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey says the company plans to build a network of "Nash" Cumulus stations and to launch a similarly-titled country lifestyle magazine, through Modern Luxury, the magazine company it operates. The company, says Dickey, is also exploring ways to bring the "Nash" country brand to cable television. Original radio content produced by Cumulus for the brand will also be sold to non-Cumulus stations under the "Nash" brand.