WHBZ (106.5 FM, "The Buzz") is a

Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin Sheboygan Falls is a city in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, United States. Its population was 8,210 at the 2020 census. The city's downtown is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the first Main Street Community in Wisconsin ...

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

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 ...

based in Sheboygan that plays a

mainstream rock Mainstream rock (also known as heritage rock) is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. Format background Mainstream rock stations represent the middle ground between classic rock and active rock ...

format. The station is currently owned by

Midwest Communications Midwest Communications is a Wausau, Wisconsin-based radio broadcasting company. It owns 82 radio stations located primarily within the Midwest United States, in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Illinois and ...

and features an all-local lineup, with

Fox News Radio Fox News Radio is an American radio network owned by Fox News. It is syndicated to over 500 AM and FM radio stations across the United States. It also supplies programming for three channels on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. History In 2003, ...

updates and forecasts provided by

WLUK-TV WLUK-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Suring-licensed CW affiliate WCWF (channel 14). Both stations share studi ...

in Green Bay.

History

Intellectual property of WWJR (1972–2001)

The station originally went on the air as WHBL-FM in 1972 on 97.7 with an automated

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 ...

format. An ownership change where the station was sold to Michael R. Walton saw its call letters changed to WWJR-FM on March 14, 1977, with the calls changed to honor his son (and later station co-owner), Michael Walton Jr. The station vacillated between

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 ...

and live-hosted operation through most of those two decades, with occasional

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

ing with sister AM station WHBL, usually with

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 ...

formats. It moved to a new allocation in March of 1993 at 93.7 as part of a large frequency swap throughout northeastern Wisconsin. A constant through the years was its annual broadcast of

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject ma ...

throughout December. The station's format and call letters moved to a new frequency licensed to Sheboygan Falls at 106.5 on April 4, 1997, to make room for country station

WBFM WBFM is a country music station licensed to Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The station broadcasts at 93.7 MHz, on the FM dial. WBFM-FM is owned and operated by Midwest Communications under the sub-branding of ''Sheboygan Radio Group'', which owns se ...

on 93.7, moving towards an automated

soft rock Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...

format, and was also the pre-

WLKN WLKN (98.1 FM, "Lake 98.1") is a radio station licensed to Cleveland, Wisconsin with an adult contemporary format consisting mainly of music from the 1980s until the current day, serving the lakeshore cities of Sheboygan and Manitowoc/ Two Riv ...

home of ''

Delilah Delilah ( ; , meaning "delicate";Gesenius's ''Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon'' ar, دليلة, Dalīlah; grc, label=Greek, Δαλιδά, Dalidá) is a woman mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. She is loved b ...

''. The WBFM facility holds the

facility ID The facility ID number, also called a FIN or facility identifier, is a unique integer number of one to six digits, assigned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Media Bureau to each broadcast station in the FCC Consolidated Databas ...

which originated with WHBL-FM in 1972, and the 106.5 frequency is officially a new radio station that launched in 1997.

WHBZ (2001–present)

After Midwest's purchase of the three Walton stations in mid-2001 and a transitional

Hot AC 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 s ...

format from July 2001, the station changed their calls to WHBZ on December 29, 2001, and on the same day changed over to

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 ...

as "The Buzz". Until the second week of 2015 the station carried the syndicated ''

Bob & Tom ''The Bob & Tom Show'' is a syndicated US radio program established by Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold at radio station WFBQ in Indianapolis, Indiana, March 7, 1983, and syndicated nationally since January 6, 1995. Originally syndicated by Premier ...

'' for their morning show with local news cut-ins, before deciding to switch to a nearly fully non-syndicated schedule outside of non-critical periods. Except for weeknights, where

Nikki Sixx Nikki Sixx (born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr.; December 11, 1958) is an American musician, best known as the co-founder, bassist, and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. Prior to forming Mötley Crüe, Sixx was a me ...

's ''

Sixx Sense Sixx Sense was a nationally syndicated rock radio show broadcast from Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles and heard on over 115 radio stations. It was also available on iHeartRadio in The United States and Canada. The iHeartRadio channel intersperses acti ...

'' is aired, along with the Sunday night shows ''Rock Recall'' and ''

hardDrive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...

'', all station programming is either originated locally from Sheboygan either live or recorded for overnight shifts, or voicetracked from other Midwest stations in Green Bay and Wausau. The station also is used to carry play-by-play from either the

Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. It is the thi ...

or Brewers radio networks for the Sheboygan area in case of a conflict between the two teams on WHBL.

References

External links

* HBZ Radio stations established in 1972 Midwest Communications radio stations 1972 establishments in Wisconsin {{Wisconsin-radio-station-stub