WBMS (1460
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 radio ...
licensed to
Brockton, Massachusetts
Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population is 105,643 as of the 2020 United States Census. Along with Plymouth, Massachusetts, Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of ...
. The station is owned by Edward Perry, Jr. through licensee Marshfield Broadcasting Co., Inc. and is currently simulcasting sister station
WATD-FM
WATD-FM (95.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is a radio station carrying local news and features for the South Shore (Massachusetts), South Shore of Massachusetts (comprising Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk and Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Plymout ...
in
Marshfield, Massachusetts
Marshfield is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, on Massachusetts's South Shore. The population was 25,825 at the 2020 census.
It includes the census-designated places (CDPs) of Marshfield, Marshfield Hills, Ocean Bluf ...
. The station also broadcasts through
FM translator
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
station W266DA (101.1).
History
As WBET
WBMS signed on as WBET on November 27, 1946. The station was owned by The Brockton Publishing Company, with studios on 60 Main Street in Brockton, inside the headquarters of ''
The Enterprise'' newspaper.
The original frequency was 990 kHz, daytime only, but by 1952 would move to its current 1460 kHz frequency due to the owners of WBET buying the two other Brockton stations, WBKA (1450 AM) and WBKA-FM (107.1). WBET then turned in the licenses for 990 and 107.1 and moved WBET to 1460. WBKA had been owned by Joseph Curran. The 1951 Broadcasting Yearbook does not list either WBKA or WBKA-FM but the 1953 Broadcasting Yearbook lists WBET as having a construction permit for 1460 with 1,000 watts and the following year is listed as being on 1460.
1948 saw the addition of FM simulcast service with WBET-FM (97.7). When WBET would sign off at sundown, WBET-FM provided service through the nighttime hours. In 1976, WBET-FM ended its simulcasts of the AM station and began broadcasting a
top 40
In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...
format
Format may refer to:
Printing and visual media
* Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements
* Paper formats, or paper size standards
* Newspaper format, the size of the paper page
Computing
* File format, particular way that informatio ...
. A year later, its call letters were changed to WCAV. In 1982, the station switched to a
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
format and remained with it until 1999 when
Radio One purchased the station and moved its studios out of Brockton.
Today, that station is operated from studios in
Medford by
iHeartMedia
iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...
as
WZRM
WZRM (97.7 FM, ''Rumba 97.7'') is a radio station in the Boston, Massachusetts market licensed to Brockton, Massachusetts, carrying a Spanish CHR radio format. Owned and operated by iHeartMedia, it serves the Metro Boston and South Shore area ...
and broadcasts a
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
CHR format.
WBET featured local news, talk, sports and a variety of different programs and was promoted as "
Full Service Full service or Full Service may refer to:
* Full-service radio, a wide range of programming
* Full Service Network, a communications company
Entertainment
* "Full Service", a song by the New Kids on the Block from their album ''The Block''
* F ...
Radio for Metro South."
Sale to Business TalkRadio Network, as WBZB/WXBR
The station was purchased in 2006 by the
Business Talk Radio Network
BizTalkRadio is a radio network in the United States. Its programming focuses on the entrepreneur, small business owner and listener who wants to manage their family's assets. Formerly known as the Business Talk Radio Network, BTR was purchased ...
based in
Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich (, ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the town had a total population of 63,518. The largest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast (Conne ...
.
Syndicated programming
Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States where ...
from the network was added to the station's lineup. The station was assigned the WBZB call letters on November 24, 2006, three days ahead of the 60th anniversary of its first sign-on. On December 12, 2006, the station changed its call sign to WXBR.
The station was put up for sale in 2011.
On May 2, 2012, WXBR staff was evicted from its studios for failure by its owner to pay rent.
During this time, the station aired only those programs syndicated by the Business Talk Radio Network.
Sale to Azure Media
On May 18, 2012, the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
approved the sale of WXBR to Azure Media, LLC., a
Haitian American
Haitian Americans (french: Haïtiens-Américains; ht, ayisyen ameriken) are a group of Americans of full or partial Haitian origin or descent. The largest proportion of Haitians in the United States live in Little Haiti to the South Florida area ...
-owned radio group based in
Miami Gardens, Florida
Miami Gardens is a city in north-central Miami-Dade County, Florida. It is located north of Downtown Miami with city boundaries that stretch from I-95 and Northeast 2nd Avenue to its east to Northwest 47th and Northwest 57th Avenues to its west ...
.
The station's local programming returned to the air that day with its rent paid.
On August 3, 2012, Azure Media officially took control of WXBR and signed the station off at 7 P.M. the same day.
Former station personalities Dawn Carr and Dennis DeNapoli were on hand at its 60 Main Street studios to announce that the station would be off the air as its studios were relocated and thank all of its current personalities and staff at the time. This was followed by a vintage programming
promo
Promo or promos may refer to:
Promotions and advertising
*Promo (media), a form of commercial advertising used to promote television or radio programs
*Promo (professional wrestling), a televised interview in which a wrestler's on-screen personali ...
voiced by Jack Ainslie from its days as WBET and the playing of "
Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby Goodbye)
"Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby, Goodbye)" is a popular song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, a member of The Four Seasons, whose version of the song made it to No. 1 in Canada and No. 12 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1965. On the original issue ...
" by
The Four Seasons. DeNapoli read the final station identification before the station went silent.
Azure Media constructed new studios on 250 Belmont Street in Brockton with new studio equipment and replaced the station's transmitter. Also, a new logo and website was designed. The new owners intended to return most of WXBR's original programming and hosts under the previous ownership and invite local businesses and community members to start new programs on the station.
The station was originally scheduled to return to the air on September 12, 2012.
However, problems with the installation of the new transmitter delayed that return.
It was later revealed that copper plates needed to transmit were allegedly stolen from its transmitter site in West Bridgewater among other unexpected issues.
Those issues were successfully resolved and almost six months to the day after the station signed off, WXBR returned to the air on February 2, 2013 at 6:50 P.M. with a 30-minute test broadcast consisting of a mix of classic rock and country music played from its new studios. More
stunting was periodically conducted in the days that followed.
The station officially returned to the air on March 5, 2013.
Azure attempted to restore WXBR's original format of local news, talk, sports and variety programming with a mix of longtime personalities, new faces and syndicated offerings. They also encouraged community members to purchase time on the station to develop new programs under a
time-brokered format. However, according to reports, the station had been unsuccessful with these efforts and was losing revenue under this format. On July 7, 2014, Azure Media announced that it would be ending WXBR's in-house broadcasts and change the station's format to ethnic
Haitian Creole
Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people wor ...
. The station's last day of airing local news and talk programs was July 11, 2014. The station was branded as ''Radio Azure 1460'', adopted the slogan ''La Radio Haitienne de
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
(Boston's Haitian Radio Station)'', and had its studios relocated to
Randolph, Massachusetts
"To Say What One Feels"
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.
Sale to Marshfield Broadcasting Company, as WATD/WBMS
On April 29, 2015, the Marshfield Broadcasting Company and owner Ed Perry entered into an agreement to purchase WXBR from Azure Media. The station was taken silent shortly thereafter and the sale was closed on July 17, 2015 at a purchase price of $165,000. The new owner planned to bring the station's studios back to Brockton, restore its original full service format and change its callsigns to WATD, in reference to the company's
flagship station, WATD-FM in Marshfield.
The station changed its call sign to WATD on April 28, 2016.
In February 2019, WATD returned to the air with a simulcast of WATD-FM and signed on FM translator station W266DA. On March 1, the station changed its callsign to WBMS,
which stands for "Brockton Metro South." This would be the third time the WBMS call sign was used in the Boston market, as it was the call sign for
WILD
Wild, wild, wilds or wild may refer to:
Common meanings
* Wild animal
* Wilderness, a wild natural environment
* Wildness, the quality of being wild or untamed
Art, media and entertainment Film and television
* ''Wild'' (2014 film), a 2014 A ...
(1090 AM) from its sign-on in 1946 to 1951 and again from 1952 to 1957. The station has since aired limited original programming and sports with a locally based
oldies
Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as we ...
format on weekdays while continuing to simulcast WATD-FM.
[ ][ ][ ]
Programming
Former hosts
One of the earliest personalities at WBET was Arthur "Doc" Jones. He was brought over from the former WBKA in 1952 and hosted the morning
drive time
Drive time is the daypart in which radio broadcasters can reach the most people who listen to car radios while driving, usually to and from work, or on public transportation. Drive-time periods are when the number of radio listeners in this c ...
slot (6-9AM) from that point through the mid-to-late 1970s.
After Jones, William "Bill" Hess took over the time slot and hosted until 1983. He is currently the program director at
WMAL-FM
WMAL-FM (105.9 MHz) – branded 105.9 FM WMAL – is a radio station licensed to Woodbridge, Virginia, serving the Washington, D.C. Metro area. WMAL-FM airs a talk radio format and is owned and operated by Cumulus Media. The station's stud ...
in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Charlie Bergeron hosted the morning show for 21 years (1983-2004). He was also WBET's program director, general manager and play-by-play announcer for high school sports during his time at the station.
In 2004, frequent fill-in host Steve Mason became the successor to Bergeron, who is currently a freelance broadcaster and weekend sports anchor at
WBZ in Boston.
In January 2009, WXBR made changes to its traditional morning drive format, which featured two people; Mason and news director Kevin Tocci. Management cited tough economic times and decided go with a single personality. Tocci was asked to continue with live news updates, and also to fill the role of host. Mason was let go after 16 years at the station and is currently a personality on
WPLM-FM
WPLM-FM (99.1 FM, "Easy 99.1") is an adult contemporary music station licensed to Plymouth, Massachusetts. It is owned by Plymouth Rock Broadcasting Co. and has a sister AM station by the same callsign. Its transmitter is located in Plymouth. W ...
in
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
.
The show was renamed ''The Metro South Morning News with Kevin Tocci''. Tocci also hosted a sports talk show on the station with Mark Littlefield on Saturday afternoons called ''KITB Sports Talk'' (KITB standing for "Krashing into the Bigfield").
After Azure Media took over ownership of the station and took it off the air in August 2012, Tocci departed and joined WATD-FM as a news correspondent and talk show host. When the station returned to the air in March 2013, Peter Czymbor and Mike Paiva took over as hosts and the show was known as the ''Metro South Morning Show'' or ''PM in the AM'' until the switch to ethnic Haitian in July 2014.
Jim Larkin was one of the longest-tenured personalities at WBET/WXBR. He hosted ''Sounds of the Emerald Isle'', an Irish music and comedy show, Sunday afternoons from 1982-2012. When Azure Media took over ownership of the station and took it off the air in August 2012, Larkin moved his show to
WVBF in
Middleborough Center.
Bill Alex hosted ''Newsline'', a popular Brockton-area morning talk show/news program weekdays from 9-11AM during the 1990s. Bill also reported news events during the day at WBET. The following is a Bill Alex newscli
(credit to former WBET/WXBR hosts Jim Larkin and Dale Morris). Ron Van Dam, who was brought over from cross-town
WZBR, WMSX, became the successor to Alex's program in 2001 and hosted until the change in formats in July 2014. Van Dam now podcasts his show online a
http://metrosouthodcasting.com
Translator
References
*1992 Broadcasting Yearbook, p. A-163
*http://www.bostonradio.org/stations/19633
*http://lists.bostonradio.org/bri/v02/msg02202.html
External links
*
*
*
WBMS Stream on TuneIn App
{{Adult Contemporary Radio Stations in Massachusetts
BMS (AM)
Radio stations established in 1946
1946 establishments in Massachusetts
Brockton, Massachusetts
Mass media in Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Mainstream adult contemporary radio stations in the United States
Full service radio stations in the United States