1983. Though WEOK returned to what it had left, it leaned more on oldies and flipped entirely to oldies in 1986. Two years later, this format was replaced when WEOK changed to pop standards as a charter affiliate of Unistar's "AM Only" format, better known today as Westwood One's "Popular Standards" while retaining local programming drive times and parts of weekends. WEOK's oldies format and some of the air staff (including Rick McCaffery) informally migrated to WCZX. In 1993 WCZX became a sister to WEOK through a local marketing agreement, then an outright purchase in 1996. History since 1999 The aging demographics of pop standards by the late 1990s led WEOK owner Crystal Radio Group (the spun off Dyson family unit) to explore changing its format. In summer 1999, the decision was made to dissolve the formats of WEOK and sister WALL in Middletown and to launch a new format on the two frequencies. On September 6, 1999, WEOK dumped pop standards and joined with WALL to simulcast the talk format. Nick Robbins program director and morning man for many years took the station through many format changes under station manager Mike Harris. The stations became known as "News-Talk 13," an amalgam of Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Poughkeepsie-centric local host Larry Hughes, ESPN Radio, and assorted other programming including the rights to the New York Yankees, New York Giants, New York Jets, and Marist College men's basketball. Complaints that programming leaned too much towards one area or another, plus the high numbers of WABC from New York City, doomed this format. On August 28, 2000, WEOK and WALL flipped to ESPN Radio as its primary format as 1340/1390 ESPN Radio though Larry Hughes would remain for nearly another year, and a brokered financial information show which dated back to the standards format would continue to air. Not long after this flip, the Crystal group was sold to Aurora Communications though most of Crystal's employees survived the move. The ESPN Radio simulcast worked in the short-term, however the flip of WEVD in New York City (whose signal is directional to the north) to the format in August 2001 led to an uncertain future for the format. After Aurora was bought out by Cumulus Media in April 2002 and new management came in, several new formats were explored ranging from a second try at talk radio to Radio Disney. The research-obsessed Cumulus