WBAV-FM (101.9

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

, ''"V 101.9"'') is an

urban adult contemporary Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music on ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

serving the

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

market. Owned by

Beasley Broadcast Group Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., based in Naples, Florida, is an owner/operator of radio stations in the United States. , the company owned 63 stations under the Beasley Media Group name. History The company was founded in 1961 by George G. Beasl ...

, WBAV's studios are located on South Boulevard in Charlotte's South End, and a transmitter is located in Gastonia (its city of license). The station carries

Smooth Jazz Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. History Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...

on its HD 2 channel.

History

The station signed on in 1947 as WGNC-FM. It was locally owned by the McSwain Family. The station was a full simulcast of co-owned WGNC/1450 AM and was the only FM station ever licensed to Gastonia. The station normally ran a broadcast day of 5:00 AM to 12:00 midnight until the late 1970s, when it began operating 24 hours daily. In 1976, it broke off from its AM sister and began airing an

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

format. The call letters were changed to WZXI in 1978. The station was one of three

soft adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet sto ...

stations in the

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

market when protests over the programming change by

WEZC WEZC (95.9 hertz, MHz) is a commercial radio, commercial FM radio, FM radio station city of license, licensed to Clinton, Illinois. It is owned by the Miller Media Group and the broadcast license is held by Kaskaskia Broadcasting, Inc. WEZC ha ...

in December 1982 led WZXI to change to

beautiful music Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...

. In 1987, WZXI became WLIT and later switched to a satellite-delivered

MOR Mor or MOR may refer to: Names and titles * Mór (given name), a list of people named Mór or Mor * Mor (surname), a list of people named Mor or Mór * Mor (honorific), or Mar, in Syriac Radio and television * Middle of the road (music) genre * ...

format.

WCKZ

On January 22, 1988, shortly after

Beasley Broadcasting Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., based in Naples, Florida, is an owner/operator of radio stations in the United States. , the company owned 63 stations under the Beasley Media Group name. History The company was founded in 1961 by George G. Beasl ...

bought the station, WLIT became WCKZ, better known as "Kiss 102". "Kiss" aired a " CHUrban" format, which is the precursor to what is now known as

Rhythmic Contemporary Rhythmic contemporary, also known as Rhythmic Top 40, Rhythmic CHR or rhythmic crossover, is a primarily American music-radio format that includes a mix of EDM, upbeat rhythmic pop, hip hop and upbeat R&B hits. Rhythmic contemporary never uses ...

. Artists included

Lionel Richie Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of funk band the Commodores; writing and recordi ...

Shalamar Shalamar () is an American R&B and soul music vocal group active since the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Shalamar's classic line-up on the SOLAR label consisted of Howard Hewett, Jody Watley, and Jeffrey Daniel, together with dancer ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Lisa Lisa Lisa Velez (born January 15, 1967), better known by her stage name Lisa Lisa, is an American singer. She rose to fame in the 1980s as one-third of the band Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. Early life According to Spin Magazine, ''Spin'' magazine, Velez ...

Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 and ...

and

Jody Watley Jody Vanessa Watley (born January 30, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and artist,USA Today (February 16, 1996), Best Bets: Albums Jody Watley Greatest Hits, "Few singers fired up the disco like Jody Watley who set trends ...

. The station also increased its transmitter's power on

Crowder's Mountain Crowders Mountain is one of two main peaks within Crowders Mountain State Park, the other peak being The Pinnacle. The park is located in the western Piedmont of North Carolina between the cities of Kings Mountain and Gastonia or about west ...

and moved its studio from Gastonia to Charlotte. However, due to rival

WPEG WPEG (97.9 FM, ''"Power 98"'') is a mainstream urban radio station serving the Charlotte, North Carolina market. It is owned by Beasley Broadcast Group. The station's studios are located on South Boulevard in the city's South End, and a transmitt ...

's increase in power, as well as increased competition from WAQQ, the station began falling in the ratings, as well as financial troubles, resulting in the station filing for bankruptcy in 1992. In late 1993, Beasley announced they would sell WCKZ to Broadcasting Partners Inc. (BPI), who recently purchased WPEG. A local group, Citizens for Broadcasting in the Public Interest, started a petition to stop the sale, but the sale was approved in mid-January 1994. BPI decided to merge WCKZ's rhythmic format with WPEG in order to eliminate the competition between the two stations. (The "Kiss" moniker, though with a more

Mainstream Top 40 Pop Airplay (also called Mainstream Top 40, Pop Songs, and Top 40/contemporary hit radio, CHR) is a 40-song music chart published weekly by Billboard (magazine), ''Billboard'' Magazine that ranks the most popular songs of pop music being played o ...

format, would be relaunched on

95.1 FM The following radio broadcasting, radio stations broadcast on FM broadcasting, FM frequency 95.1 MHz: Argentina * LRM945 Esperanza in Venado Tuerto, Santa Fe * LRP756 Estilo in San Justo, Santa Fe * Metro 95.1 in Buenos Aires * KISS FM in R ...

in May 1996.)

WBAV

On January 24, 1994, at 2 p.m., WCKZ flipped to

Urban AC Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music on ...

, branded as "V 101.9." New WBAV-FM call letters would be adopted on January 24. (The WBAV call letters were assigned on February 11 to co-owned station

WGIV WGIV (1370 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Pineville, North Carolina, and serving the Charlotte metropolitan area. It airs an urban contemporary radio format. WGIV is owned by Frank Neely, but the station is operated by Ste ...

. Following a format change, the AM station returned to the WGIV call letters in May 1997.) Broadcasting Partners would merge with Evergreen Media in May 1995. In December 1996, as part of a multi-market swap, WBAV (as well as Evergreen's 4 other Charlotte stations) was traded to

EZ Communications EZ Communications, Inc. was a corporation with its headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. In the 1970s, the small company was one of the pioneers of the easy listening on the FM broadcasting radio spectrum with 2 stations in Manassas and Richmond. W ...

(owners of

WSOC-FM WSOC-FM (103.7 MHz) is a commercial radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is owned by Beasley Broadcast Group and airs a country music radio format, calling itself "Country 103.7." Its primary country competitor is iHeartMedia's WKKT. ...

and WSSS;

WRFX WRFX (99.7 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Kannapolis, North Carolina and serving the Charlotte metropolitan area. Owned by iHeartMedia, it airs a classic rock radio format, and calls itself "99.7 The Fox." The radio studios and ...

would then go to SFX Broadcasting), with Evergreen receiving EZ Communications' Philadelphia stations

WIOQ WIOQ (102.1 FM) is a commercial radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The station broadcasts a Top 40 (CHR) radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia. The studios and offices are on Presidential Boulevard in Bala Cynwyd. The station c ...

and

WUSL WUSL (98.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station city of license, licensed to Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It carries a mainstream urban radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The radio studio, ...

in return (EZ would then be bought by

American Radio Systems American Radio Systems Corporation was a radio company that existed from 1993 until 1998. Its predecessor, Atlantic Ventures, was founded by Steven B. Dodge, Eric Schultz, Joseph Winn, and Michael Milsom. American Radio Systems was formed from ...

in July). ARS would be bought out by

Infinity Broadcasting Infinity Broadcasting Corporation was a radio company that existed from 1972 until 2005. It was founded by Michael A. Wiener and Gerald Carrus. It became associated with popular radio personalities like Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Don Imus an ...

on September 19, 1997, with Infinity changing its name to

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...

in December 2005 as part of the spin-off of CBS' motion picture and cable television assets under a relaunched

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

. On January 22, 2004, WBAV-FM dropped

Tom Joyner Thomas Joyner (born November 23, 1949) is an American retired radio host, former host of the nationally syndicated '' The Tom Joyner Morning Show'', and also founder of Reach Media Inc., the Tom Joyner Foundation, and BlackAmericaWeb.com. Early ...

, who moved to WQNC. WBAV-FM was one of only three

Urban Adult Contemporary Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music on ...

stations owned by

, the other two being

KTWV KTWV (94.7 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, and broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc., and airs an urban adult contemporary radio format. KTWV has studios on ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and the now defunct WJBW/WNEW-FM/WUUB in

West Palm Beach West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

. Charlotte was also the only market where CBS Radio operated two full service urban stations. On October 2, 2014, CBS Radio announced that it would trade all of their

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

and Charlotte stations (including WBAV), as well as

WIP WIP or WiP may refer to: Political parties * Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta, a political party in Alberta, Canada * Western Independence Party of Manitoba, a former Canadian provincial political party * Western Independence Party of Sas ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

to the

in exchange for 5 stations located in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

and Philadelphia.CBS And Beasley Swap Philadelphia/Miami For Charlotte/Tampa
from Radio Insight (October 2, 2014) The swap was completed on December 1, 2014. The trade brought the 101.9 frequency back to its former owners for the first time since 1993.

References

External links

WBAV-FM Website
* {{coord, 35.233, N, 81.276, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title BAV-FM BAV-FM Radio stations established in 1947 Urban adult contemporary radio stations in the United States 1947 establishments in North Carolina BAV-FM