Pittsburgh radio listeners know when a familiar voice vanishes, even before anybody in management says a word. That is the kind of market Pittsburgh has always been. It pays attention. And right now, one of the city’s more noticeable lineup changes is unfolding at 94.5 3WS, where longtime personality Mike Frazer appears to be out and Val Porter has moved from mornings into the station’s afternoon slot.
The shift has not come wrapped in a big formal announcement from the station, but the pieces are there. Pittsburgh Radio & Television Online reported this week that Frazer was out after 36 years, while Patch described him as a 3WS fixture for nearly 40 years and reported that Porter had taken over the 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. shift. On 3WS’s own current talent page, Porter is now listed as being heard “afternoons on 3WS,” while the active show menu includes Jonny Hartwell, Tall Cathy, Val Porter, Adam West, and Michelle Fay.
That tells the story clearly enough.
Mike Frazer, one of the more enduring names on the Pittsburgh dial, is no longer sitting in the chair he occupied for years, and Val Porter is now the station’s afternoon voice. Patch reported that Porter announced the move in a social media video, saying, “After having the privilege and pleasure of doing morning radio for 25 years in Pittsburgh, I’m moving to afternoons.” The same report said she will continue her duties at sister station WDVE-FM, and her 3WS page now says she is heard on 3WS afternoons and on DVE weeknights.
What makes this one hit a little harder is that Frazer was not just another name on a website. He was one of those steady presences who, over time, becomes part of the sound of a market. Even now, his individual page is still live on the 3WS site, complete with his bio and a stack of show-related posts from March, while the station’s current featured talent lineup has already moved on without him. That kind of split-screen tells you a lot about how fast radio can change. One page still looks like yesterday. The current lineup is already living in today.
And in Pittsburgh, that matters.
Because this is not a city that treats radio like disposable wallpaper. Pittsburgh still has that old-market instinct. It remembers personalities. It remembers runs. It remembers who was there when people were driving to work, driving home, tailgating, shoveling snow, or sitting in the driveway for an extra minute to hear the end of a break. Frazer had that kind of longevity, and whether you call it 36 years or nearly 40, that is not a small exit. That is the removal of a deeply familiar voice from one of the city’s legacy signals.
As for Porter, this is not some random fill-in move. She came to 3WS from WDVE’s morning world, and she is already a known quantity in the market. The station’s site and outside reporting now make it plain that she has become the new afternoon presence on 3WS, which means iHeart is not trying to introduce an unknown. It is shifting a familiar Pittsburgh voice into another high-visibility slot and hoping that familiarity carries the day.
And maybe that is the part of the story radio people understand best.
These changes rarely arrive with poetry. They arrive with quiet edits to a lineup page, a social media video, a missing name, a moved daypart, and listeners figuring it out in real time. That seems to be exactly what happened here. Mike Frazer’s long run at 3WS appears to have come to an end, and Val Porter is now the one carrying afternoons on the station.
In Pittsburgh, that is not just musical chairs.
That is a real radio story.
-WW