WMBL-AM
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WMBL was an AM radio station that broadcast on 740 kHz in Morehead City, North Carolina.
The station went on the air in 1947. The entry for WMBL in a booklet from August 1957 to commemorate Morehead City's centennial states: the "radio station is heard from Maine to Florida, and has been heard all the way to Nebraska. Particularly, this is true during hurricane season, when friends and relatives at distant points want information on conditions in this locale."[1]
WMBL was one of the few stations to play beach music in the 1950s and 1960s. A listener of the station noted that an afternoon deejay of that time, Bobbie Dennis, "was bold enough to play records by The Drifters, Clyde McPhatter and Big Joe Turner, to name a few."[2]
A FM station using the WMBL call letters went on the air on July 28, 1978 at 95.9 FM (The station would later move to 96.3). In 1986, the stations were acquired by Great American Media (now Curtis Media Group). They were part of the Great American Media group until the early 1990s.[3]
WMBL-FM changed its call letters to WMBJ on October 13, 1981, according to FCC records. On June 4, 1986, the station adopted its current call sign, WRHT-FM.[4]
WMBL broadcast a popular standards format at "Unforgettable 740" in its last few years. The station was bought by a subsidiary of Clear Channel Worldwide and permanently taken silent in February 2000 to allow for WSCC, 730 in Charleston, SC, to make an upgrade.
