WBGI (AM)

Radio station in Connellsville, Pennsylvania

WBGI (1340 AM) was an American radio station licensed to serve the community of Connellsville, Pennsylvania, approximately 40 mile (64 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. The station was last owned by Keymarket Communications, which also held the final broadcast license. Long known as WCVI, WBGI fell silent after several years of simulcasting sister station WPKL in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, which aired, and continues to air, a classic hits radio format. Its license was cancelled on July 19, 2012. The remaining staff, however, remained loyal to the station and stayed on, some even working for free as volunteers. and wound up operating under temporary authorization pending an appeal. Eventually this began to take its toll; by early 2000, WCVI only had two paid employees by early 2000, the station manager (who doubled as a full time supply sergeant at Connellsville's National Guard armory) and a part timer The ABC affiliation lapsed and WCVI took Al Ham's Music Of Your Life format full time outside of the morning and midday shows. The station's previous studios on the second and third floors at 133 East Crawford Avenue were vacated for a small storefront on the first floor that eventually had the heat turned off;

WCVI also went silent in June 2001 after it and WPQR were acquired for $475,000 by Keymarket Communications of Carnegie in a January bankruptcy court sale, to satisfy more than a million dollars in debt incurred by Mar Com and Kel Com. After undergoing an extensive technical overhaul, WPQR finally returned to the air under the new call letters WPKL (99.3 The Pickle) and an oldies format. WCVI also returned to the air under the call letters WPNT, but only as a simulcast of its FM sister. The station changed its call sign to WYJK, but still had no independent programming of its own. A co owned FM sister station licensed to Bellaire, Ohio, is known as WRQY, playing a variety hits format. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Keymarket Communications applied for special temporary authority on WYJK's behalf in November for a silent station, with reasons given as being technical in nature. Reporting silence since November 6, the FCC approved the request November 29, 2006. WYJK remained off the air for a period of more than two and a half years, returning to the air in August 2008. However, WYJK continued to simulcast FM sister station WPKL, and no plans were announced for it to develop independent programming of its own. On September 15, 2011, the station changed its call sign to WBGI.

On June 14, 2012, WBGI went silent for the final time. Keymarket surrendered the station's license to the FCC on June 21, 2012. The FCC cancelled the license and deleted the WBGI call sign from its database on July 19, 2012. The historic East Crawford Avenue building was sold to a new owner in 2005, after years of local hearings concerning its ownership liability.