early 2000s, first being sold to Aurora Communications in October 2000 and then to Cumulus Media when that company purchased Aurora a year later. It was the second move that led to profound changes as new management came out as being against the Oldies format which led to the push of WCZX/WZAD to change format. In February 2002 WCZX/WZAD began a gradual evolution away from oldies. Initially, they added some 1980s music. By the Summer the pre-1964 oldies were nearly gone and they were known as "Oldies 97 The Hudson valley's Best Mix". By August 2002, the station began focusing on the 1970s and played music from 1964 to 1989. Labor Day weekend in 2002 saw the name change to Mix 97, which at that time was a 1960s to 1980s music format. Late in 2002, the station began adding 90's music as well as recent hits and would evolve into an Adult Contemporary format in 2003. They would spend 2004 evolving away from its gold base. By 2005, the WZAD end of the simulcast was losing local listenership and advertising to locally-based WVOS-FM and its adult contemporary format. At the same time, Cumulus was looking to shore up the ratings of WKXP, a poorly rated country station with coverage problems. Prior to the start of the Spring ratings in March 2006, Cumulus changed WZAD's simulcast from WCZX to WKXP in response to saving WKXP's format and to retaliate against locally based WDNB launching a country format. The first ratings book for the two stations saw a slight improvement though both stations lag considerably behind longtime leader WRWD. On August 30, 2013, a deal was announced in which Cumulus would swap its stations in Dubuque, Iowa and Poughkeepsie, New York (including WZAD) to Townsquare Media in exchange for Peak Broadcasting's Fresno, California stations. The deal was part of Cumulus' acquisition of Dial Global; Townsquare, Peak, and Dial Global are all controlled by Oaktree Capital Management. The sale to Townsquare was completed on November 14, 2013. On January 3, 2020, sister station Now 97.7 WCZX out of (Hyde Park) dropped its Hot AC format and announced that it would become part of, The Wolf simulcast to make a trimulcast to do competition with 107.3/99.3 WRWD-FM (Highland/Poughkeepsie)/WRWB-FM (Ellenville/Eastern Catskills). On February 26, 2020, WZAD became the main station for The Wolf branding and Country Music due to the originating station, 94.3 FM