WEAT (107.9 FM) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

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 ...

West Palm Beach, Florida West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lagoon. The populati ...

. It airs a

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980 ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when radio was compelle ...

, switching to Christmas music for much of November and December. It is owned by

Hubbard Radio Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. is an American television and radio broadcasting corporation based in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was founded by Stanley E. Hubbard. The corporation has broadcast outlets scattered across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, ...

, through licensee WPB FCC License Sub, LLC. The studios and offices are on Northpoint Parkway in West Palm Beach. The station plays 1970s, '80s, and '90s hits from the

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 "cont ...

charts of those decades. WEAT has an

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would h ...

(ERP) of 100,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...

s. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

is located off Route 7 at 60th Street North in West Palm Beach.

History

Beautiful music and Oldies

On , the 107.9 frequency

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...

. The original

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...

was WPBF (no relation to the present-day television station). It was a

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 mu ...

station, playing quarter hour sweeps of mostly soft instrumental

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

s of popular songs. It was owned by Ken-Sell, Inc. alongside

WIRK WIRK (103.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. Licensed to Indiantown, Florida, the station serves the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County area. The station is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, through licensee WPB FCC Lic ...

1290 AM 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...

. The power was only 26,000 watts, a quarter of its current output. The station became WIRK-FM on March 5, 1971. Later that year, the station shifted to a

automated Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

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 ...

format known as "Olde Golde".

Country music

In September 1973, WIRK-FM ended its oldies programming and flipped to

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, ...

with live, local

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile ...

s: Barry Grant mornings, Randy Marsh middays, Dave Roberts afternoons and “Country Gene” Evans evenings. By 1978, it ranked in the top 10 most-listened-to country music stations in the United States, in terms of its share of local listeners. WIRK-AM-FM were sold in 1983 to Price Communications for $7 million. A year later, it entered into an agreement with actor Burt Reynolds to build a remote studio at his horse ranch in

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

and broadcast from it from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.

Ownership and frequency changes

Price sold WIRK-FM and 1290 AM, at the time known as WBZT, to Chancellor Broadcasting in 1994. In 1995, Chancellor traded its West Palm Beach radio stations, including WIRK-FM, to

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 exchange for a station in California and $33 million. The next year,

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

bought the entire American Radio Systems group in a $2.6 billion transaction. In 2012, CBS Radio, citing a desire to focus on larger markets, sold its entire West Palm Beach cluster to Palm Beach Broadcasting for $50 million. The sale included the intellectual unit of

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 ...

station 104.3

WEAT WEAT (107.9 FM) is a commercial radio station in West Palm Beach, Florida. It airs a classic hits radio format, switching to Christmas music for much of November and December. It is owned by Hubbard Radio, through licensee WPB FCC License Sub, ...

. Because Palm Beach already owned one FM station in

WRMF WRMF (97.9 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station in Palm Beach, Florida. It serves the West Palm Beach, Florida radio market. The station airs a hot adult contemporary radio format and is owned by Hubbard Radio. The studios and offices are ...

, it had to divest two of CBS's stations to other buyers. Because the 104.3 FM facility was powerful and could be moved into the

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

radio market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

, it was tagged for sale. On June 1, 2012, "Sunny" and the WEAT call letters moved from 104.3 (which became WMSF) to 107.9, while

and its country format moved to 103.1 MHz, marking the end for former

hot 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 ...

station WPBZ. Dean Goodman folded Palm Beach Broadcasting into another radio holding, Digity, upon the latter's purchase of NextMedia in 2013.

Sales to Alpha and Hubbard, classic hits

Effective February 25, 2016, Digity, LLC and its 124 radio stations were acquired by

Alpha Media Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...

for $264 million. Alpha then sold its West Palm Beach cluster to Hubbard Broadcasting in 2018 for $88 million. After having been an adult contemporary station since 1992 (when the original WEAT-FM flipped from easy listening), Hubbard transitioned WEAT to classic hits in 2019, reducing overlap with co-owned WRMF. In 2020, WEAT started broadcasting in HD.

References

External links

Sunny 107.9 official website
* {{coord, 26.5773, N, 80.2420, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title EAT 1965 establishments in Florida Radio stations established in 1965