WVWI (1000 AM) 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 ...

licensed to serve

Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands Charlotte Amalie ( ), located on St. Thomas, is the capital and the largest city of the United States Virgin Islands. It was founded in 1666 as Taphus (meaning 'beer house' or 'beer hall' in Danish). In 1691, the town was renamed to Charlotte A ...

. The station is licensed to Infinity Broadcasting, LLC which is wholly owned by Alma Francis Heyliger. It airs a

News News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

Talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

format.

Programming

In addition to its regular programming, this station airs the "dLife Diabetes Minute" health advisory program and

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

games as an affiliate of the

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...

radio network.

Ownership

The station began operations in October 1962 as WBNB (the callsign stood for ''B''ob a''N''d ''B''ob, as in Bob Noble and Bob Moss, the station's co-founders) co-owned with the now-defunct

WBNB-TV WBNB-TV, VHF analog channel 10, was a CBS- affiliated television station licensed to Charlotte Amalie, on the island of Saint Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands. The station operated from 1961 until 1989. History WBNB-TV was the first ...

, the Virgin Islands' first television station. After founding owners Island Teleradio Service, Inc. sold the TV outlet in 1970, WBNB's call letters were changed to the present WVWI in order to comply with an FCC rule in place then that required TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership to use different call signs. The station's co-founder, Robert Noble, acquired sole control of WVWI that same year, renaming his new company Thousand Islands Corporation. After its facilities were destroyed by

Hurricane Marilyn Hurricane Marilyn was the most powerful hurricane to strike the Virgin Islands since Hurricane Hugo of 1989, and the third such tropical cyclone in roughly a two-week time span to strike or impact the Leeward Islands, the others being Hurricane ...

in September 1995, Noble sold the station in 1996 to Randolph Knight, who proceeded to rebuild the station;. its former TV cousin, WBNB-TV was forced off the air when

Hurricane Hugo Hurricane Hugo was a powerful Cape Verde tropical cyclone that inflicted widespread damage across the northeastern Caribbean and the Southeastern United States in September 1989. Across its track, Hugo affected approximately 2 million peop ...

destroyed its transmitter six years earlier in 1989, and unlike WVWI, WBNB-TV's owners,

Benedek Broadcasting Benedek Broadcasting was a television broadcasting company, who owned and operated 22 network-affiliated television stations throughout the United States, all affiliated with major television networks, serving mainly small and medium-size markets. ...

, did not have the financial means to rebuild the station, and stayed dark as a result. Local businessman Gordon Ackley purchased WVWI and its FM sister station, WWKS, from Knight in 2006. The two men were partners in another radio station, WVJZ, and Ackley also bought out Knight's 50 percent interest in that outlet. On July 1, 2017, the station changed its callsign to WWKS but on July 6, the station reverted to its prior callsign WVWI. Effective January 1, 2021, Ackley sold WVWI to Alma Francis Heyliger's Infinity Broadcasting, LLC for $160,000.

References

External links

{{US Virgin Islands Radio VWI News and talk radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1962 1962 establishments in the United States Virgin Islands