WIST-FM is a
Regional Mexican
Regional Mexican is a Latin music radio format encompassing the musical genres from the different parts of rural Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Genres include banda, country en español, Duranguense, grupero, mariachi, New Mexico ...
outlet serving the
Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. The GHB Broadcasting station is licensed to
Thomasville, North Carolina. The studios and transmitter are co-located in
High Point, North Carolina.
History
The station started in
Thomasville, North Carolina as WTNC-FM. During its history, its call letters have included WEYE. At one point, the station played
country music during the day and
urban contemporary music at night. During the 80s, 98.3, with the call sign WTHP, was one of the first oldies stations in the area.
Buddy Poole, one of several partners who bought the station along with
WTNC in 1984, was general manager from 1984 until 2002, when he bought
WSAT in
Salisbury.
On
May 5, 1989, the station lost its tower when severe storms struck the area.
In the mid-90s, under the calls WFAZ, 98.3 played
contemporary Christian music. After the station's sale to GHB Broadcasting, a switch was made in 1997 to
adult standards, mostly from the
Satellite Music Networks format
Stardust. The call letters WIST-FM were chosen at this time.
During most of 2004, the former WTNC was WIST-AM, airing most of the FM station's programming. In 2005, WIST-AM became
sports talk WBLO
WBLO (790 AM broadcasting, AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Spanish language Adult Contemporary radio format. City of license, Licensed to Thomasville, North Carolina, it serves the Piedmont Triad. The station is owned by GHB Radio and is le ...
"790 The Ball". WAAA (now
WTOB) in Winston-Salem began airing the station's programming at that time, but that station was not able to broadcast at full power and later changed to sports talk.
The FM station changed to
classic country as "Country Legends 98.3" in October 2005.
On June 4, 2010, Norberto Sanchez of Norsan Multimedia said that his company would lease WIST-FM and WBLO, with an option to buy. WIST-FM would have a
Spanish language format, including broadcasts of the
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
Carolina Panthers Radio, serving the Triad area.
[Mark Washburn, "Spanish broadcaster adds 2 stations," ''The Charlotte Observer'', June 5, 2010.] The change on the FM station took place at 6 P.M. June 30, after
George Jones' "
Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" played.
References
External links
*
IST-FM
{{NorthCarolina-radio-station-stub