City | Newport Village, New York |
---|---|
Broadcast area | Utica, New York |
Branding | Bug Country |
Slogan | Today's New Country |
Frequency | 99.7 MHz |
Repeater(s) | 101.1 WBUG (Fort Plain) |
Format | Country music |
ERP | 1,400 watts |
HAAT | 206 meters |
Class | A |
Facility ID | 110 |
Transmitter coordinates | 43°8′28.00″N 75°1′49.00″W / 43.1411111°N 75.0302778°W |
Callsign meaning | BuG Kountry |
Affiliations | ABC Radio |
Owner | Ken Roser (Roser Communications Network, LLC) |
Webcast | Listen Live |
Website | bugcountry.com |
WBGK is an FM radio station licensed to Newport (village), New York. The station broadcasts a country music format under the branding "Bug Country". The station broadcasts at 99.7 MHz on the FM dial and is owned by Roser Communications Network, Inc. The station also has a simulcast with WBUG-FM (101.1) in Fort Plain, New York, though high school football games are broadcast only on WBGK 99.7.
Though the station is licensed to the village of Newport, New York, the license states "Newport Village" as the city of license. There is no city or village in New York State called "Newport Village".
WBUG-FM began as a locally produced simulcast with WBUG in Amsterdam and WBGG in Saratoga Springs. WBGG broke from the simulcast in 1994, and it was replaced with Little Falls-licensed WLFH (now ESPN Radio affiliate WIXT, along with WTLB and WRNY), which had itself been a country music station. The stations then broadcast the Real Country satellite classic country format from ABC Radio, and added WBGK at 99.7FM in 2001. WLFH was later acquired by Clear Channel Communications and left Bug Country to join the "Sports Stars" network of WADR/WUTQ and WRNY. In 2004, WBUG left Bug Country to become talk-formatted WVTL, leaving WBGK and WBUG-FM as the only two stations in the Bug Country network. In November 2009, WBGK and WBUG-FM dropped Real Country and swapped it with a continuous automated selection of country Christmas music. After the holidays, their current format of mainstream country was launched and the station returned to local production.