WUBT (101.1 FM, "101.1 The Beat") is an American

urban contemporary Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban conte ...

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 ...

broadcasting in the

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

market, under ownership of iHeartMedia. Though the station is licensed to

Russellville, Kentucky Russellville is a home rule-class city in Logan County, Kentucky, in the United States. It is the seat of its county. The population was 6,960 at the time of the 2010 census. History Local historian Alex C. Finley has claimed the area was fir ...

, its studios are located in Nashville's

Music Row Music Row is a historic district located southwest of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Widely considered the heart of Nashville's entertainment industry, Music Row has also become a metonymous nickname for the music industry as a w ...

district and the transmitter site is in

White House, Tennessee White House is a city in Robertson and Sumner counties in the United States state of Tennessee. The population was 12,982 at the 2020 census. It is approximately twenty-two miles north of downtown Nashville. History Settlers The area that is no ...

History

The Russellville years

On September 16, 1964, 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) authorized South Kentucky Broadcasters, owner of WRUS (610 AM), to build a new FM radio station at 92.1 MHz, to broadcast with 3,000 watts, in Russellville. The station debuted as WRUS-FM February 27, 1965, as a full-time simulcast with its AM sister station. In 1974, the FCC approved WRUS-FM to increase its effective radiated power to 100,000 watts on 101.1 MHz, giving it much wider regional coverage. When the upgraded facility went into effect on December 10, 1974, the station changed its call sign to WAKQ and adopted a separate

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 ...

format. One result of the new format was that WRUS-FM's extensive coverage of local and regional sports was curtailed. With signal coverage available from

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...

to Nashville, the station was listened to by some Nashville sports fans, such as those who wanted to hear coverage of

Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball The Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team is an American college basketball team that represents the University of Kentucky. Kentucky is the most successful NCAA Division I basketball program in history in terms of all-time winning percentag ...

. After a sale of WRUS and WAKQ in 1978 fell through, the stations were purchased five years later by longtime WRUS-WAKQ sports director Lon Sosh, already a 50 percent partner in the ownership group. The next year, citing health reasons, Sosh sold both stations to Keymarket Communications, a consortium headed by Paul Rothfus of

Aiken, South Carolina Aiken is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Aiken County, in western South Carolina. It is one of the two largest cities of the Central Savannah River Area. Founded in 1835, Aiken was named after William Aiken, the president of the S ...

. The new owners retained Sosh as sports broadcaster and proceeded with the erection of a new, tower to increase the FM's coverage area. One bigger change came from the Rothfus group in the summer of 1984 when the station flipped to country as "The Beaver". Along with this change, the station's callsign was changed to WBVR-FM. Keymarket later became Target Communications, headed by Donald Alt, who also served as a vice president of the Keymarket group. In 1990, the Amaturo Group purchased WBVR for $6 million (half of that in cash and half in assumption of liabilities), splitting it from WRUS for a time. Meanwhile, Target purchased WCBZ (96.7 FM) in Bowling Green in 1991. Keymarket then bought back WRUS and WBVR in early 1994 for a nominal value of $10.

The move to Nashville and Jazz format

In July 1994, the Beaver brand and format moved to WMJM (the former WCBZ), which became the new

WBVR-FM WBVR-FM (96.7 MHz) is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. The station, which is licensed to Auburn, Kentucky, United States, and serving the Bowling Green area, is owned by Forever Communications, Inc. The station's transmitte ...

, and to a second station, WVVR in Hopkinsville. Keymarket had simultaneously acquired

WLAC WLAC (1510 AM) – branded ''Talkradio 98.3 & 1510'' – is a commercial talk radio radio station licensed to serve Nashville, Tennessee. Owned by iHeartMedia, the station covers the Nashville metropolitan area. The WLAC studios are located ...

and WLAC-FM in Nashville, and the Beaver move freed up the 101.1 facility to gear itself toward Nashville as R&B-formatted WJCE-FM, "The Juice". Keymarket was then purchased by River City Media in 1995, and

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

then acquired River City in 1996. The "Juice" format was dropped in December 1996, with the station stunting with Christmas music for the holiday season before flipping to

smooth jazz Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. History Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...

as "Jazzy 101.1" at the start of 1997. With this switch, the station's callsign was changed to WJZC. Sinclair then unloaded the three Nashville radio stations it had acquired from River City and sold them to SFX Broadcasting in 1997.

Contemporary Christian format

After AMFM Inc. acquired SFX, it flipped WJZC from its satellite-delivered jazz to a contemporary Christian music outlet, branded as "The One" and with the call sign WZTO, on October 1, 1999.

Hip-hop format

On October 12, 2001, the station's call letters were changed to the current WUBT as the station adopted its present

format, using the moniker "101.1 The Beat Jamz" (revised to "101.1 The Beat" in 2014); the previous format had failed to garner advertiser support. Since July 2007, WUBT is home to the

Steve Harvey Broderick Stephen Harvey Sr. Also aired August 16, 2015. (born January 17, 1957) is an American television host, producer, actor, and comedian. He hosts '' The Steve Harvey Morning Show'', '' Family Feud'', ''Celebrity Family Feud,'' the Miss ...

Morning Show in the Nashville market.

References

External links

* {{IHeartMedia Urban contemporary radio stations in the United States UBT Radio stations established in 1965 1965 establishments in Kentucky IHeartMedia radio stations Russellville, Kentucky Radio stations in Nashville, Tennessee