expanded to 88–108 MHz. During a transition period from the original FM "low band" to the new "high band", some stations for a time broadcast simultaneously on both their old and new frequencies. However, WEAF-FM did not, and in October 1945, it was announced that the station was shutting down the broadcasts on 45.1 MHz and was temporarily going silent while it made the technical adjustments needed to operate on its new assignment at 97.3 MHz. WNBC-FM / WRCA-FM / WNWS-FM (1946–1977) In late 1946, the station's call letters were changed to WNBC-FM. Programming was usually simulcasts of WNBC (AM)'s programming. A reallocation in the fall of 1947 moved the station to its current frequency assignment of 97.1 MHz. In the 1950s, WNBC-FM played classical music, later switching to pop music. It ran network programming for some time, such as the NBC Monitor weekend series. On October 18, 1954, the call letters were changed to WRCA-FM, reflecting NBC's then-parent company, the Radio Corporation of America, but returned to WNBC-FM on May 22, 1960. By the 1970s, the station was playing a pop-rock format. Beginning on June 4, 1973, it experimented with fully automated programming with local inserts known as "The Rock Pile", a forerunner of today's DJ-free adult hits format, with a wide diversity of pop, rock and R&B that proved to be 30 years ahead of its time. However, technical glitches were frequent and listenership dropped. For a brief period starting in late 1974, the station attempted a fully automated beautiful music format for a younger demographic, called "The Love of New York". In 1975, NBC Radio launched the NBC News and Information Service (NIS), a network service providing up to 50 minutes an hour of news programming to local stations that wanted to adopt an all-news format without the high cost of producing large quantities of local news content. WNBC-FM's small audience was deemed expendable to allow NIS to have a New York outlet, and on June 18, 1975, the station became WNWS-FM, branding itself NewsCenter 97, an allusion to sister station WNBC-TV's NewsCenter 4 local newscasts. Ratings were low — at the network's peak, only 57 stations across the country carried NIS, most of them already NBC Radio News affiliates — and the service did not attract enough stations to allow NBC to project that it could ever become profitable. On December 31, 1976, the station discontinued