rhythmic sounds such as soul, disco and freestyle. On November 28, 2007, WKTU announced that it had dropped Whoopi's morning show. According to station management, the reason was due to Goldberg's duties on The View, although it may also have to do with the show's ratings. Her show continued to air in syndication through Premiere Radio Networks until April 18, 2008, when she called it quits. Paul "Cubby" Bryant, who served as Goldberg's co-host, left the syndicated show and returned to WKTU in January 2008 to host his own morning show. Around 2009, WKTU did another tweak in their Rhythmic AC format, dropping the older elements of dance music (disco and freestyle, including Judy Torres' "Freestyle Free For All" Sunday show; Torres has since returned to doing a Sunday afternoon shift at WKTU) and focusing mainly on a current direction, with mainstream dance and rhythmic music. The station pursued the advertiser-friendly demographic of people who are 25–54 years old, a move which has helped increase station ratings. In September 2010, the station returned to a Rhythmic Top 40 direction, as WKTU was added to the Mediabase Rhythmic panel joining rival WQHT. On December 15, 2010, Goumba Johnny left WKTU after 15 years, leaving Hamilton solo in afternoons. On April 4, 2011, WKTU was moved from the rhythmic CHR panel on Mediabase to CHR (top 40), reflecting the recent evolution of the station's music to a more rhythmic adult contemporary direction again without disco/classic dance titles. At the same time, Nielsen BDS refrained from including WKTU's playlist on its top 40/CHR panel because of its direction and having sister station WHTZ as a reporter, but the station did contribute to BDS' Dance/Mix Show Airplay panel due to having club music mix shows on the station up until August 16, 2014, when BDS added WKTU to the top 40/CHR panel, with the inclusion of non-rhythmic titles. On Memorial Day weekend 2014, WKTU started airing commercial free weekends, in order to compete with WBMP, which also started airing commercial free weekends after that station was relaunched as 92.3 AMP Radio. The commercial free weekends era on WKTU lasted until Labor Day weekend, 2014. Despite its pop-leaning direction, WKTU has continued to embrace current dance product, even breaking new songs from the genre a lot quicker than its top 40/CHR or rhythmic top 40 counterparts. HD2 operation WKTU began broadcasting in HD in late