| WCYK-FM | |
| City: | Staunton, Virginia |
| Area: | Charlottesville - Harrisonburg - Lexington |
| Branding: | 99-7 CYK |
| Format: | Country |
| Power: | 3,300 watts |
| Haat: | 516m (1,693feet) |
| Class: | B |
| Facility Id: | 70861 |
| Coordinates: | 38.0644°N -78.805°W |
| Callsign Meaning: | CountrY K |
| Former Callsigns: | WANV-FM (1984–1994) WVAO-FM (1994–1996)[1] |
| Owner: | Monticello Media |
| Licensee: | Monticello Media, LLC |
| Sister Stations: | WCHV, WCHV-FM, WHTE-FM, WHUK, WKAV |
| Webcast: | WCYK-FM Webstream |
| Website: | 997CYK.com |
| Affiliations: | MRN Radio PRN Radio |
| Licensing Authority: | FCC |
WCYK-FM (99.7 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station licensed to Staunton, Virginia, and serving Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, and Lexington, Virginia. It is owned and operated by Monticello Media and it broadcasts a country music format. The studios and offices are on Hillsdale Drive in Charlottesville.
WCYK-FM has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 3,300 watts as a Class B FM station. The transmitter is on Bear Den Mountain in Waynesboro.[2]
The station signed on the air on .[3] Its original call sign was WANV-FM and it had a soft adult contemporary format. The station was co-owned by M. Robert "Bob" Rogers' High Fidelity Music Show, Inc. WANV-FM served as a sister station to country WANV 970 AM in Waynesboro.[4] Bob Rogers was the former manager of WGMS in Washington, D.C. With his wife Terry, he ran a series of annual High Fidelity Music Show expos to showcase the latest in home audio technology.[5] The station initially transmitted from Elliott Knob west of Staunton, high enough to cover the Staunton-Waynesboro-Harrisonburg portion of the Shenandoah Valley.[6]
In 1989, WANV-FM received a construction permit to move to Bear Den Mountain, just east of Waynesboro and north of Afton Mountain. Although this site is roughly 1,500 feet lower than Elliott Knob, it affords a much wider coverage area, with local-grade service to the Charlottesville metro in addition to the valley to the west. The station flipped to oldies during 1991.[7]
Bob Rogers died in 1992, and the two stations passed to his son as executor, who began looking for a buyer. In March 1994, Michael Douglass' Clark Broadcasting Company bought WANV-FM along with longtime Charlottesville country stations WCYK (810 kHz) and WCYK-FM (102.3 MHz), based in Crozet.[8] Clark changed the call sign to WVAO-FM and, at first, kept the oldies format.
To take advantage of the 99.7 MHz facility's superior signal, Clark then moved the more popular country format and WCYK-FM call letters from 102.3 in February 1996. That station took the oldies and WVAO-FM call sign in return.[9]
Clear Channel entered the Charlottesville market by buying Clark's three FM stations in 1998. The company ran the station as "Country 99.7", but otherwise did not make changes.[10]
Clear Channel exited the Charlottesville market in June 2007 by selling all of its stations to George Reed's Sistema 102 LLC, which was later renamed Monticello Media.[11] On November 3, 2007, Monticello tweaked the station's branding to "Your Country 99.7". On the morning of September 16, 2010, the station adopted the "Hitkicker 99-7" brand, which came with changes to airstaff but not music.[12]
Exactly seven years later, on September 16, 2017, the station shifted brands again to "99.7 CYK", at the same time adding some recurrents to a music rotation that was largely hit-based. This occurred as a result of increased competition from WCVL-FM (92.7 MHz), which airs a 1990-based country format, and a format change at Monticello's own classic country outlet WKAV.[13]