WGTM was an

AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transmis ...

station licensed to and located in Wilson, North Carolina. Named for the World's Greatest

Tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

Market, WGTM was founded in the 1930s by the Wilson Tobacco Board of Trade. The station originally transmitted at 1310 kHz, and last operated on 590 kHz with 5000 watts full-time. 106.7 WGTM-FM was silenced by

Hurricane Hazel Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and Sout ...

which destroyed the tower in October 1954. Owned by Campbell Broadcasting in the 1960s until 1985, WGTM had a

block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

-type format, featuring local news,

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while ...

, AC,

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

, and

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

. It was then sold to Willis Broadcasting and the format changed to

urban contemporary gospel Urban/contemporary gospel is a modern subgenre of gospel music. Although the style developed gradually, early forms are generally dated to the 1970s, and the genre was well established by the end of the 1980s. The radio format is pitched prima ...

. The studios were located in the back of a church supply store on Highway 42 west of Wilson. The transmitter site was near Rock Ridge and featured a four-tower array that covered a large part of eastern North Carolina. In the 1950s and 1960s the studios were located on US Highway 301 and later just off of

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

. WGTM fell silent on March 13, 2010. WGTM was deleted by 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 jurisdicti ...

(FCC) on December 2, 2011, for failure to file for the renewal of its license (which expired a day earlier).

References

External links

FCC Station Search Details: DWGTM
(Facility ID: 61929)
FCC History Cards for WGTM (Wilson)
(covering 1936-1978) {{Rocky Mount-Wilson Radio GTM Wilson, North Carolina Defunct radio stations in the United States Radio stations disestablished in 2011 2011 disestablishments in North Carolina GTM