The era of commercial broadcasting for WPCK/104.9 (Denmark-Green Bay) came to an end with a goodbye announcement as 2019 closed.
Cumulus Media’s The Mainstay Station Trust is selling WPCK to the Educational Media Foundation to comply with ownership caps. The station had already ended its Country “Nash FM” format and switched to “Christmas 104.9” on Nov. 1.
The Christmas music continued on the station’s webstream until about 11:40 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, ending with Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Then Carrie Underwood’s version of the national anthem and a goodbye announcement came around midnight:
WPCK was off the air as of Wednesday morning.
Documents that later became available in the FCC database confirmed that EMF closed on its purchase of the station on New Year’s Eve.
The Educational Media Foundation operates the non-commercial Christian “K-Love” and “Air1” networks. “K-Love” has been heard for the past several years on WPFF/90.5 (Sturgeon Bay), which offers a rimshot signal to Green Bay.
WPCK began its life as WVLE/104.9 (Kaukauna) in 1969 as a 3kW (class A) station. It later changed its callsign to WKAU-FM, and then to WPCK in 1997. In 2003, it upgraded to 10kW/157m (class C3) and changed its community of license to Denmark with a transmitter east of Green Bay.