WBUT
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| Broadcast area | Butler, Pennsylvania / Pittsburgh |
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| Branding | BUT Kickin' Country! |
| Frequency | 1050 (kHz) |
| First air date | March 14, 1949 |
| Format | Country, news, talk, sports |
| ERP | 500 watts (day) 65 watts (night) |
| Class | D |
| Callsign meaning | BUTler County |
| Owner | Butler Media Group |
| Website | InsideButlerCounty.com |
WBUT is a commercial AM radio station, licensed to Butler, Pennsylvania. The station first went on the air in 1949, about seven years following the debut of its competitor and present affiliate station, WISR.
WBUT operates at the federally assigned frequency of 1050 kilohertz, with a maximum power output of 500 watts. Like other small AM's of its day, it was licensed to operate only during daylight hours. That changed when WBUT was granted a license to operate at 65 watts during nighttime hours beginning in the mid-1980s.
WBUT can be heard via internet streaming on www.radiop1.com as well as on the mobile app TuneIn.
The station was founded in 1949 and first owned by the Wise family, which also published The Butler Eagle, Butler's daily newspaper, doing business as Eagle Printing Company. J. Leonard Taylor served as the station's first general manager.
WBUT originally was issued a construction permit to operate at the frequency of 1580 kHz, upon which it operated at a power of 500 watts for a period of several years after going on the air. The station first operated from the Nixon Hotel in downtown Butler, where Morgan Center stands today.
WRYO, a radio station that debuted at 1050 kHz in 1948 in Rochester, Pennsylvania in adjacent Beaver County, Pennsylvania failed by 1955, leaving its channel available for WBUT, which uses this channel today. Like WRYO, WBUT operated at 250 watts once assuming this channel until its current tower in Center Township was built in 1979. WBUT began broadcasting from this new tower in 1980, and was subsequently allowed to double its power to the current value of 500 watts, but still retained its daytime-only operational status.
With the frequency swap, came its first change in ownership. The new WBUT, along with its sister FM operating at 103.9 mHz, were sold to Beacom Broadcasting Enterprises in 1955.
WBUT operated as an AM/FM combo, and then as an AM standalone until 1955, when it successfully applied for another FM broadcasting license, which coincidentally, once belonged to its competitor, WISR-AM, which had returned it citing an unnecessary expense. WBUT earlier had given up its 103.9 mHz frequency, which was later located to Mercer County. The call letters were immediately changed to WBUT-FM, with the two stations simulcasting one another until the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enacted new rules in 1965 which called for combination license holders to offer unduplicated programming at least half of the broadcast day. The stations continued to simulcast part-time throughout the early 21st century.
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Wikipedia