What Happened To NOW 97.7? An Overnight Switch To Country From Top 40

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Did y’all notice that NOW 97.7 stopped playing Top 40 and started playing Country? You probably listen to Spotify, and this radio business is too old-school for you, but I for one do love listening to local radio in my car. The flipping around the stations for catching random songs cannot be beat. However, my kids are the boss of what we listen to (usually) and if it’s not Kidz Bop, it is/was 97.7. The raging debate for a while was if it was pronounced 97 “point” 7, or just plain 977 with no hyphen or dot. Apparently it was the latter!

But then, 97.7 as we know it disappeared. Country songs started coming out of those call letters in the first days of January 2020. This discovery was made in my older car, which has questionable, imprecise radio frequency, so I blamed it on that. Days later, I verified in my newer car, that indeed, country music was coming out of 97.7. Not that I don’t like country music. I like to line dance! But this was our Top 40 go-to spot on the FM dial.

Next, I verified the change with the 97.7 app. Yup. There, too, was the country. And now articles covering country celebrity gossip were in the news feed! As well as Hudson Valley headlines. The 97.7 app was still good for Hudson Valley headlines (as depressing as they could be, like when human remains are found behind a diner), which are now associated with the Hudson Valley Post. (Another not-great story that showed up when I looked at the station’s news: this one about New Paltz drinking water being contaminated.) It’s a less overwhelming place to go for headlines than Google News, though do keep going to your Google News, folks, as that source picks up A Little Beacon Blog headlines as well!

But finally, Wikipedia confirms the change, another step in the long and interesting history of WCZX 97.7. What this change really means for my family is… that I finally get to listen to K104.7 and WALL Radio - a move my son has protested against each time. But now we get to hear the celebrity headlines in the morning, and the mid-morning mashup of ‘90s songs. WALL Radio reads all of the political headlines. I’ll miss PopCrush Nights with Lisa Paige (hadn’t heard Kayla aka “KT” yet) that I would catch during Kid Pickup. Not sure where to find them again. I’ll still keep the 97.7 app on my phone for the quick scroll of local headlines, but I’m glad for the freedom in radio tunes on my dial.