WBCE (1200 AM) is a

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 radi ...

broadcasting a religious format, licensed to

Wickliffe, Kentucky Wickliffe is a home rule-class city in Ballard County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 688 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Ballard County. Wickliffe is part of the Paducah, KY- IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. His ...

, United States. The station is owned by Wendell D. Gray.

History

WBCE was put on air by a pair of attorneys, Charles Geveden and Bill Cunningham, who under the Ballard-Carlisle Broadcasting Company put stations on air in Wickliffe and Eddyville. The station's call letters were chosen after WBCK, the first option in mind, was found to be in use in Battle Creek, Michigan; the station later justified the E for "Entertainment" by the time it signed on January 3, 1981 on 1010 kHz. After signing on with a country format (as well as

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

and Kentucky Network news), WBCE changed formats to gospel music on November 1, 1982, citing the glut of area stations playing country music. WBCE applied to build an FM station in Wickliffe, which was approved in 1984 after the competing applicant for the frequency dropped out, though it was never built. The AM station also got a boost when it moved from 1010 to 1200 kHz in 1985, increasing its power to 1,000 watts from 250, though it remained daytime-only. 1986 brought with it a sale to religious ownership, when WBCE, Inc. was bought by Bibletime Ministries, an outgrowth of Faith United Church in

Paducah Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Miss ...

, headed by Jim Baggett. The station had been originally backed by the

Small Business Administration The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) is an independent agency of the United States government that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses. The mission of the Small Business Administration is "to maintain and stre ...

, but when the Beal Bank bought the loan, it accelerated the payment schedule, forcing Baggett into foreclosure in 2004. Under the impression that the station's license renewal could not be filed because of the foreclosure, Baggett did not do so; the FCC renewed the license and approved the station's sale at auction to James N. Courtney at the end of 2006, but fined the station $7,000 for the late renewal. Courtney sold WBCE to Rev. Wendell D. Gray for $105,000 in 2011.

References

External links

{{Daytime-only radio stations in Kentucky

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

Radio stations established in 1981 1981 establishments in Kentucky