WYDE-FM

WYDE-FM, calling itself Fun 101.1 FM, is an oldies radio station owned by Crawford Broadcasting Company that serves Birmingham and most of north-central Alabama from a broadcast tower near the Cullman County/Blount County line. Launched under its present designation in 2002, the call letters are taken from the much older WYDE-AM. The production studio is located at 244 Goodwin Crest Drive on Red Mountain. Steve Armstrong is the station's general manager. The production director is Pat Bosley.

WYDE serves as the broadcast home for the UAB Blazers football and basketball, as well as the Birmingham Barons baseball team.

History

From 1950 to 1998, when the signal was confined to the area around Cullman, 101.1 FM was known as WFMH-FM. The station went through several different formats, including classic country music and adult standards. In 1998 a group of Birmingham businessmen purchased the station with the intent of launching a second contemporary Christian music station to complete against WDJC-FM, the station was rebranded as Reality 101.1 with the call letters WRRS-FM.

Reality 101.1 enjoyed initial ratings success, but the location of the station’s broadcast tower hindered the signal from adequately reaching the Over the Mountain area. At about the same time, WDJC dropped all of its Christian teaching and evening Southern gospel programs to air contemporary Christian music full-time.

Faced with bankruptcy, the station was sold to an ownership group that held several stations in the Huntsville market. They switched the formats to "modern rock/adult contemporary" and named it “101.1 the Spot”. “The Spot” was no more successful in the Birmingham market than its predecessor, and the ownership of the station began looking for an opportunity to sell.

The Source

Crawford Broadcasting purchased Radio Disney affiliate WMKI-AM (850) in 1999 and re-launched it as a talk radio station. The station reacquired its heritage call letters, WYDE. The new WYDE established itself as a leader in conservative talk, becoming one of the more listened-to talk stations in Birmingham. The station’s reduced nighttime signal, however, limited its coverage area.

In 2002, Crawford, which was looking to expand the listening area of WYDE, purchased WRRS-FM and temporarily took the station off the air in order to upgrade its transmitter. In August of that year, 101.1 FM returned to the air as WYDE-FM "The Source", Birmingham’s first FM talk station. At first, both WYDE-FM and AM were full-time simulcast partners, but by the fall, the AM station changed its call letters, first to WDJC-AM, and then to WXJC-AM, restoring much of the Christian teaching and Southern gospel music lost from the airwaves during the station's previous incarnation.

The Source's on air personalities included Lee Davis (mornings), Burt and Kurt (mid-day), Matt Murphy (evening drive), and, until September 2006, Russ and Dee Fine. The Fines were replaced with "The Attack Machine" (Dale Jackson and Chris Hobbs).

In 2003, WYDE-FM began simulcasting its programming on co-owned WLGS-AM, which had been an oldies/adult standards station. The call letters of the AM station were changed to WYDE-AM. That simulcast continued until September 2006, when the AM station was taken off the air in preparation for its relaunch as an adult standards station. The new call letters of the AM station are WLGD-AM.

On June 27, 2007, weekend paid programming host David Billings of the Home 101 Show announced on his website that the station would be dropping the FM Talk format. On July 2 WYDE-FM dropped the news/talk format, and began stunting with Christmas music, in a "Christmas in July" format, simulcasting with WLGD-AM. When it returns to full programming, the station will go by the name Fun 101.1 FM and play an oldies format. It is unclear if the simulcast with WLGD will continue.

References

• "WYDE-FM." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2 Jul 2007, 17:50 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 2 Jul 2007 [1].

External links

• WYDE-FM website.