WLMG (101.9 FM, "Magic 101.9 FM") is a good commercial

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

licensed to

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. Owned by Audacy, Inc., 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 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

. From Black Friday to December 25 each year, it switches to all- Christmas music. The station's studios and offices are located at the 400 Poydras Tower in New Orleans'

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

district. WLMG has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s, the maximum for non- grandfathered FM stations. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

site is off Behrman Highway in the

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

neighborhood of New Orleans. WLMG broadcasts in the HD Radio hybrid format.

History

WWL-FM

On March 15, 1970, the station first signed on the air as WWL-FM. It was owned by Loyola University of the South, now known as

Loyola University New Orleans Loyola University New Orleans is a Private university, private Jesuit university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Originally established as Loyola College in 1904, the institution was chartered as a university in 1912. It bears the nam ...

. Loyola also owned

WWL-TV WWL-TV (channel 4) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Slidell, Louisiana, Slidell-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL (channel 54). The two stations share st ...

and AM powerhouse WWL. WWL and WWL-FM had the same

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

but separate formats. The AM was a full service middle of the road station, while WWL-FM played beautiful music. It featured quarter hour sweeps of instrumental

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

s of popular songs with Hollywood and Broadway show tunes.

Top 40 and easy listening

In the mid-1970s, station management decided to go in a radically different direction, seeking a younger

demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

for WWL-FM, as the FM flipped to a

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently 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. "To ...

format. However, the flip occurred during an era where most young people still were listening to inexpensive AM radios for their favorite hits. The station failed to make much headway against AM Top 40 leader WTIX. By May 1976, WWL-FM returned to

easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to the 1970s. It is related to middle of the road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit s ...

music. The format featured mostly instrumental songs with several soft vocals each hour. On December 26, 1980, to separate the FM station's image from its AM and TV counterparts, the call letters were changed to WAJY. The station, calling itself "Joy 102," moved closer to a 50/50 mix of instrumentals and vocals, some from

soft rock Soft rock (also known as light rock or mellow rock) is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in the United States and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, mel ...

artists such as

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. His music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on the music industry, and his songwriting partnership with l ...

Olivia Newton-John Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British and Australian singer and actress. With over 100 million records sold, Newton-John was one of the List of best-selling music artists#100 million to 119 million record ...

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris (; Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th c ...

and

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Switch to WLMG

Through the 1980s, the easy format saw its audience continuing to age, while most advertisers seek young and middle-aged listeners. In 1987, the station completed its transition to a

soft 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 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

format, eliminating the instrumentals. The call sign was changed to WLMG, and rebranded as "Magic 102." With most radios in the 1990s going from analog dials to digital, the station began calling itself "Magic 101.9" in 1995. Over the next decade, WWL and WLMG changed hands several times. In 1989, Loyola University sold the stations to Keymarket Communications. The TV station was sold to a group of its employees, using the name Rampart Broadcasting. In July 1995, the radio stations were acquired by River City Broadcasting. Later ownership switched to Sinclair Broadcast Group. In December 1999, WWL and WLMG were acquired by Entercom.Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook 2001 page D-197
/ref> In the early 2000s, WLMG moved to a mainstream

format. In 2006, the

WWL-FM WWL-FM (105.3 MHz) is a commercial radio station city of license, licensed to Kenner, Louisiana, and serving the New Orleans metropolitan area. It is owned by Audacy, Inc. WWL-FM and sister station WWL (AM), WWL (870 AM) simulcast a Talk radio ...

call sign returned to New Orleans on 105.3 FM.

References

External links

* * {{Entercom WLMG Mainstream adult contemporary radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1970 1970 establishments in Louisiana Audacy, Inc. radio stations