WLAN – AM1390 signed on the air in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1940 from offices and studios located 252 North Queen Street. Seven years later, WLAN – 96.9FM began broadcasting from the same location as the AM station, which was a three and four story walk-up.
2004
I was hired as the General Manager of WLAN AM/FMN in the fall of 2004 and quickly realized the stations not only needed to be modernized but relocated to a part of Lancaster that would be more accommodating to our listeners (for prize pickups and events), our advertising clients, and our staff – in particular our sales staff, which had to come and go from the station multiple times a day.
2005
Meetings with Clear Channel corporate led to getting a budget for a move and the green light to relocate to 1685 Crown Avenue, Suite 100 in Lancaster.
2006
In May of 2006 the ribbon was cut and a huge party for listeners and advertisers was held in our parking lot outside of our state-of-the-art broadcast center. Tours of our offices and studios were given while members of The New Holland Band serenaded our guests.
19
Sadly, while the stations were able to broadcast from their original location for sixty-six years, the new facility would be abandoned just 19 years after it was opened.
I learned this news when I stopped in to visit the stations during a weekend getaway my wife Sue had planned in Lancaster County.
As we drove up to the front door, we saw a dumpster outside filled with building materials and looking through the windows, we saw that the former offices and studios had been completely gutted.
Nobody’s Home Anymore
What I would learn is that WLAN AM/FM had moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; about 40 miles and an hour’s travel time away from Lancaster.
Listeners who wanted to pick up prizes they may have won, now had to drive to 600 Corporate Circle in Harrisburg.
The website listed numbers to call for the Studio Lines, but all I’ve gotten when I’ve tried calling is a recorded message that says “your call cannot be completed as dialed.”
Local Is Where You Live
In my time as general manager of WLAN AM/FM, I rarely traveled to Harrisburg, even though my regional manager was located there and was manager of Clear Channel’s dominant radio stations in Dauphin County and Pennsylvania’s capital city. Harrisburg was a world away from Amish country in Lancaster.
WLAN-FM now lists itself as a Harrisburg/Lancaster radio station with Elvis Duran’s New York City syndicated morning radio show airing live and voice tracked DJs the rest of the day.
The only local air personality that remains from my days at WLAN is Damian Rhodes who is the station’s production wizard and covers the 4-7pm afternoon drive time period.
Reviewing WLAN-FM’s website reveals mostly items for iHeartRadio, national news, entertainment and music stories with just a couple of items for events in Harrisburg, but it is devoid of anything happening in Lancaster.
For a city of almost 60,000 people located in a county of over 560,000 people, you would think there would be a lot going on that a LOCAL radio station would be involved in.
I know that’s the way it once was, when the radio station was actually broadcasting from the City of Lancaster.
“Doesn’t it always seem to go,
You don’t know what you’ve got,
Til it’s gone.”
-Joni Mitchell
One of the snappiest dressers on television was Morley Safer. But if you were to peek into Morley’s office when he was off-camera, you would have seen an office that was quite the opposite.
DickTaylorBlog 