NYC country radio station flips to classic hip-hop

And country no more: WNSH/94.7 — better known as "New York's Country 94.7" — flipped formats to "classic hip-hop" Friday afternoon at 1 p.m., leaving the city without a country music radio station for the first time in nearly a decade.

The re-branded station — "94.7/The Block" — will feature "songs and artists that are synonymous with New York’s iconic hip-hop culture and that still strongly resonate with listeners today across all generations," Audacy Senior Vice President Chris Oliviero, said in a statement.

The company added that the station will now "feature a wide collection of classic hip-hop hits and throwbacks, including favorites from Jay-Z, Fugees, Rihanna, Snoop Dogg, Beyoncé, LL Cool J, The Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige and more."

WNSH was bought by radio giant Audacy in 2019 although the country music format had been launched there in 2013 by previous owner Cumulus. According to Radio Insight, that had been the first time since 1996 that metropolitan New York again had a country music station.

As for Long Island country listeners, one option remains WJVC/96.1 FM, otherwise known as "My Country 96.1," which is located in Center Moriches but whose signal reaches only Suffolk County.

John Caracciolo, the President of JVC Broadcasting which owns the station, said, "you don't see line-dancing country places in the Bronx, in Queens, in Brooklyn [where the signal is strongest]. What they've chosen is classic Hip Hop, and they'll do great with that."