WPIG

The station originally signed on as WHDL-FM in 1949 and in its early years was affiliated, like most upstate New York FMs of the time, with WQXR-FM in New York City. James F. Hastings, later a U.S. Congressman, ran the station from 1952 to 1966. The call sign was changed from WHDL-FM to WEBF-FM in recognition of station owner E. Boyd Fitzpatrick. During the 1980s, the station aired what today's jockeys pejoratively referred to as an "elevator music" (likely something along the lines of middle-of-the-road, beautiful music or easy listening) format. In September 1988, under new ownership, the station was known as WOLN (not to be confused with FM 91.3, the public radio station that currently uses the callsign) with an adult contemporary format. A year later, on September 29, 1989, the call sign was changed to WPIG. Later, on November 6, mirroring the national trend, the station switched formats to the rapidly burgeoning country music format and became known as "The Big Pig 95.7, Today's Sizzlin' Country." It has held the same slogan, branding, and format ever since, for 30 years as of 2019; it thus has the longest uninterrupted and active run with the same format in the Southwestern New York region.

WPIG operates under the corporate entity Arrow Communications of New York. The company has variously been held by Sabre Communications, then Backyard Broadcasting, and Community Broadcasters, LLC, who purchased the station in 2013; in January 2019, Community Broadcasters sold its Southern Tier stations to Seven Mountains Media.

During the first several years of the country format, WPIG disc jockeys used pseudonyms with pig-based puns, such as: "Smokey' Joe Bacon," "Michael Hamm," "Peggy Banks," "Sue EE Cinamon Frank "Adam Ribbs," and "Christopher Neggs" (the first incarnation of The Morning Pigpen's hosts were thus bacon, ham, 'n'eggs; see also the Froggy brand, which uses similar frog-based pun names). This idea was dropped in the late 1990s as the second generation of disc jockeys would join the station, all of whom used more conventional names. Neggs remains with the station as a weekend personality and fill-in, now using his real name, Nick Purcio.

The second generation of hosts remained in their positions for over a decade; from 1998 to 2006 and 2008 to 2009, the station's lineup featured the same lineup of disc jockeys. Mark Thompson, the program director and co-host of the morning show, is the last remaining on-air personality from this era; the other three hosts from this era (Casey Hill, Mike "Smitty" Smith and Jesse Garon, all three of whom have either retired from radio and/or left Western New York) went on to launch WGWE shortly after leaving The Pig. This cleared the way for the third, and later fourth, generation of hosts that currently air on the station. WPIG added the slogan "Today's Fun Country" in 2009, which rotates with the "Sizzlin' Country" format. Also added around this time was the Big Pig Jackpot, a contest in which the station announces the amount of money in a progressive jackpot over the course of the day cold-calls random people in the listening area to test if they listen to the station; a person who either knows the answer (or, by chance, guesses correctly) wins the jackpot. The jackpot was dropped in 2014.

The station tweaked its image in 2013 with its sale to Community Broadcasters, adding 30-minute blocks of "continuous country," dropping national news, auto racing coverage and its Saturday night classic country block, taking over the local chapter of the national Country Showdown competition (which had previously rested with WQRS), and changing its voiceover announcer for the first time since adopting the country format. The station began streaming its programming on the Internet for the first time in its history beginning in 2014.

The station’s image was once again tweaked in 2019 following the station’s purchase by Seven Mountains Media. The on-air playlist (outside syndicated shows) has come to resemble a country version of the adult hits format, airing a gold-based playlist centered around the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, some current music, and a handful of country oldies dating as far back as the early 1950’s. Classic performers such as Randy Travis, Mark Chesnutt, Joe Diffie, George Jones, and Mel McDaniel have once again become core artists. The station is one of the few country stations in Seven Mountain Media's portfolio not to use the "Bigfoot Country" brand; WPIG continues to use the Pig logo and mascot out of acknowledgement of the brand's heritage and consistent high listenership in Olean.

Two programs have been on WPIG ever since its launch: the Morning Pigpen, the station's morning show (currently hosted by Mark Thompson and Gary Nease), and Text Your Tune at Noon (historically the Country Café), an all-request lunch hour; both have changed hosts since their inception. Katie McLean is currently the afternoon host.. The syndicated Taste of Country Nights airs in the evenings; historically a local jock (Michael Hamm and Jesse Garon being two of the longest-running) occupied evenings. Overnights historically were occupied by Blair Garner's syndicated programs - first After MidNite and later The Blair Garner Show. Upon Garner's departure from Westwood One in 2020, the station now airs Backstage Country, another syndicated program, in the time slot. Weekends include Country Countdown USA and the classic country shows The Original Country Gold with Rowdy Yates (which has been carried, in various forms, on WPIG since 1992) and Rick Jackson's Country Classics. Locally, Kerry Monroe, Nick Pircio, and Sam Wilson also contribute to weekends.

WPIG also has a local news bureau run by Gary Nease, with Nick Pircio reporting. National news is provided by CBS Radio News. Weather is provided by WSTM-TV chief meteorologist Wayne Mahar, with fellow Syracuse-based weatherman Phil Spevak as his designated fill-in.

WPIG's 92,000 watts of power allows the station to boom its signal through most of the western Southern Tier, stretching from Jamestown to Springville over most of Allegany County, and into much of McKean County, Pennsylvania.

The station regularly registers by far the top Arbitron ratings in the Olean market. Prior to 2009, the station ranked over a 20 share; the most recent ratings, from fall 2014, show the station having dropped to a 17 share due to increased competition.[2]

• An entirely fictional "WPIG" radio station made several appearances on the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, where it was the hated cross-town rival of the eponymous station. The punchline was that the air staff at WPIG Cincinnati was "a bunch of swine." This usage predates the current WPIG's usage of the call sign.
• A different fictional "WPIG" − WPIG Aurora − appeared in the 1993 motion picture Wayne's World 2. The station featured two memorable characters in the form of "Handsome Dan" and "Mr. Scream," portrayed by Harry Shearer and Ted McGinley, respectively. (Incidentally, the real WPIG, which had begun broadcasting its current format by this time, and the fictional WPIG Aurora both broadcast on 95.7 MHz, a departure from the usual practice of using nonstandard frequencies for fiction.)
• See also KPIG.

• WPIG Official Web site
• Official Facebook page
• WPIG in the FCC's FM station database
• WPIG on Radio-Locator
• WPIG in Nielsen Audio's FM station database