WJLT (105.3
FM, "My 105.3") 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 ...
in
Evansville, Indiana
Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...
. Owned by
Townsquare Media
Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wi ...
, it broadcasts an
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 ...
format.
History
The station started as WVHI-FM, a religious station.
In 1982, the owners decided to compete with WBKR and changed 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. The station became
WYNG (Wing 105).
WYNG was successful through the 1980s, but then things began to sour. The first blow came when WBKR started to target
Evansville, IN
Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...
a little more (it was primarily targeting
Owensboro, Kentucky
Owensboro is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Daviess County, Kentucky, United States. It is the fourth-largest city in the state by population. Owensboro is located on U.S. Route 60 and Interstate 165 about southwest of Lou ...
, but had a 100 kW signal that was received in Evansville). The second blow came in 1992 when WKDQ dumped its
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 ...
/
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 ...
hybrid format in favor of country, immediately taking numbers from WYNG. A third blow came when, in a desperate move, WYNG dumped its Wing 105 moniker and started calling itself Y105 and trying to target younger listeners.
WYNG was later acquired by
Cumulus Media
Cumulus Media, Inc. is an American broadcasting company and is the third largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States behind Audacy and iHeartMedia. As of June 2019, Cumulus lists ownership of 428 stations in 87 ...
(along with WGBF-FM/AM, WDKS, and WTRI) and later spun to
Clear Channel Communications
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 ...
(now known as iHeartMedia). Clear Channel elected to move WYNG to the 94.9 frequency which was a 50 kW facility, but the transmitter was further north in
Mount Carmel, Illinois
Mount Carmel is a city in and the county seat of Wabash County, Illinois, United States. At the time of the 2010 census, the population was 7,284, and it is the largest city in the county. The next largest town in Wabash County is Allendale, po ...
, and ratings plummeted. Eventually the 94.9 frequency was sold to
W. Russ Withers, Jr.
Meanwhile, Clear Channel decided to compete with Evansville's adult contemporary powerhouse and consistent ratings leader
WIKY-FM
WIKY-FM (104.1 MHz) is a full-service/adult contemporary music radio station serving the Evansville, Indiana radio market.
History
The call letters WIKY debuted in 1948, when John A. Engelbrecht gained the FCC license for 820 AM. WIKY sign ...
. With a callsign change to WJLT, Lite 105.3 took to the air, but the ratings plummeted for 105.3 in the new AC format. When Clear Channel spun off its Evansville cluster to Regent Communications (now
Townsquare Media
Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wi ...
), Regent flipped WJLT to
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 ...
.
WJLT saw much success with that format, with respectable ratings among the top five or six stations in Evansville.
A large part of that success was credited by listeners to the fact that Regent was able to lure Joe Blair, a popular local morning DJ who had previously built up a loyal audience at WIKY and later at WJPS-FM (now
WLYD
WLYD (93.5 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. Licensed to Chandler, Indiana, United States, the station serves the Evansville area. The station is currently owned by Midwest Communications, Inc. and features programming ...
, to take on the station's morning show.
As an oldies station, WJLT branded itself as "Superhits 105.3" and aired numerous television commercials. The station also simulcasted audio of local television station
WEHT
WEHT (channel 25) is a television station in Evansville, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to WTVW (channel 7), a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station of The CW ...
when severe weather was in the area and WEHT carried wall-to-wall weather coverage.
ESPN Evansville
![WJLT ESPN105](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/WJLT_ESPN105.3_logo.jpg)
On May 27, 2014, WJLT announced it would flip to sports talk on July 9; with the announcement, WJLT would release their entire airstaff, running jockless until the flip took place. WJLT took the
ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio, which is alternately platform-agnostically branded as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN". ...
affiliation, then heard on rimshot
WYFX, with the change. The change took place at 3PM that day; the last song on Superhits 105.3 WJLT was ''
It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)
"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" is a song by American rock band R.E.M., which first appeared on their 1987 album, ''Document''. It was released as the album's second single in November 1987, reaching No. 69 i ...
'' by
R.E.M
R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternativ ...
, and ESPN 105.3 launched with the premiere of "Ford & O'Bryan", the only local show on 105.3. WJLT became an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs Radio Network starting with the 2015 season.
My 105.3 WJLT
On December 5, 2016, WJLT dropped ESPN Radio and began playing Christmas music as "My 105.3 WJLT", with a flip to adult contemporary to follow on the 26th. Under the AC format, 105.3 will go up against market powerhouse
WIKY-FM
WIKY-FM (104.1 MHz) is a full-service/adult contemporary music radio station serving the Evansville, Indiana radio market.
History
The call letters WIKY debuted in 1948, when John A. Engelbrecht gained the FCC license for 820 AM. WIKY sign ...
.
References
External links
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*
{{coord, 38.079, N, 87.610, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title
JLT
Mainstream adult contemporary radio stations in the United States
Townsquare Media radio stations