WGNA-FM (107.7 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Albany, New York, and serving the Capital District. The station is owned by Townsquare Media and broadcasts a country music radio format. WGNA-FM has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 12,500 watts. It's transmitter is in the Helderberg Escarpment tower farm in New Scotland. WGNA holds the distinction of having the longest unchanged format (in terms of commercial stations) in the Capital District, having been a country music station since its launch in November 1973, and being one of two commercial Albany FM radio stations to have never changed their call sign, with 92.3 WFLY as the other. History Christian radio WGNA originally was not slated to take the country format it has long dominated. The 107.7 frequency had been awarded to the owners of Christian radio station 1300 WHAZ. WGNA was due to sign on with an alternate Christian format. WHAZ would concentrate on Christian talk and teaching, while the FM station would play Christian music. The GNA in the call sign would stand for "Good News Albany". These plans went on hold when WHAZ's owner died several weeks prior to the planned sign-on of WGNA. In a pinch, his children took over the station. The station signed on with a country music format on December 5, 1973, at 6:00 p.m. Country Radio For its first five days, the country music played uninterrupted. On December 10 at 6:00 a.m., disc jockeys began hosting the country sound. Going against established country station WOKO 1460 AM, WGNA became a success, even though not all radios could receive FM signals in that era. 1330 WHAZ was eventually sold off and, in 1978, WOKO left the country format. In 1988, then-WGNA owner Barnstable Broadcasting purchased WOKO and turned it into an AM simulcast of WGNA (with the FM taking the WGNA-FM call sign as a result). WGNA 1460 AM would occasionally break away from the simulcast for sports coverage. In 1990, noted Albany broadcaster Fred Horton became program director at WGNA. He led the station to become #1 in almost every Arbitron ratings book. On April 13, 1994, Barnstable sold WGNA to the radio group headed by TV host Merv Griffin. Griffin's group later sold its stations to Capstar Broadcasting in 1996. Two years later, the WGNA stations ended up as part of AMFM, Inc., a forerunner to today's iHeartMedia. Change in Program