WYSE (970 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 radi ...

located in

Canton, North Carolina Canton is the second largest town in Haywood County, North Carolina, United States. It is located about west of Asheville and is part of that city's metropolitan area. The town is named after the city of Canton, Ohio. The population was 4,227 a ...

, that simulcasts WISE's

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

format from Asheville, North Carolina. Owned by the Asheville Radio Group subsidiary of Saga Communications, the station is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to broadcast with 5,000 Watts of power during the day and 30 Watts at night. The station is 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) East division. The Braves were founded in Bos ...

radio network, the largest radio affiliate network in

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), ...

History

970 AM signed on in 1954 as WWIT (call letters stood for "W"here "W"heels of "T"urn). WWIT was daytime-only and broadcast with only 1,000 watts. It featured a

Big Band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...

format that gave way to a

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 by the late 1950s. Teenagers at that time considered Nathaniel Lowery )"Nat the Cat"), an afternoon host, a favorite disc jockey. "Nat the Cat" introduced the region to jazz, rock 'n' rock, and gospel music produced by Black and white musicians at a time when schools and churches were segregated in Western North Carolina. Bob Caldwell of

WLOS WLOS (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Asheville, North Carolina, United States, broadcasting ABC and MyNetworkTV programming to Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which pr ...

worked at WWIT in the early 1960s. The station was known on the air as "Big-IT" and "97-IT" by the late 1970s. The station was purchased by Dan Greene from Sid Watts in 1974. Greene switched back and forth with longtime legend Jimmy Haney working the popular morning drivetime slot. He worked for a power increase for several years and in 1979, WWIT increased its signal to 5,000 watts, but was still daytime only. The Top 40 format, now known as CHR, continued until the mid-1980s when it gradually switched over to

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 ...

.Greene sold the station in 1984. Prior to 1992, WWIT aired Pisgah High School football.Jeff Bryson, "Bears Fans Tune in for Action," ''Asheville Citizen-Times'', October 19, 2003. The station was sold in 1994, to a new company that took the station

Classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...

as "970 WWIT". It eventually went into bankruptcy by 2000 and was sold, becoming WBCG with 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. In September 2001, the station was sold to another company that switched the station 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 ...

and reclaimed the WWIT call letters. It was sold to Saga Communications in 2003 and became a full-time simulcast of the

WOXL-FM WOXL-FM (known on-air as Mix 96.5 FM broadcasting, FM) is a radio station licensed to Biltmore Forest, North Carolina, United States, the station serves the Asheville, North Carolina, Asheville area and broadcasts a hot adult contemporary music ...

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 ...

format. The station again dropped the WWIT call letters for WOXL. It became WLZR in 2005 and WYSE in 2006.

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References

External links

* * YSE Fox Sports Radio stations Radio stations established in 1954 1954 establishments in North Carolina {{NorthCarolina-radio-station-stub