WBTJ

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WBTJ
Broadcast area	Richmond
Branding	"106.5 the Beat"
Slogan	Richmond's #1 for Hip Hop and R&B
First air date	1957
Frequency	106.5 (MHz)
Format	Mainstream Urban
ERP	6,700 watts
Callsign meaning	W BeaT Jams
Owner	Clear Channel Communications
Website	http://www.wbtj.com/

WBTJ is a Clear Channel-owned Mainstream Urban radio station that serves the Richmond area of Virginia. Its studio is located at the Clear Channel complex on Basie Road in Richmond's West End neighborhood. Its transmitter is located on the Motorola tower in Western Chesterfield County, where it shares tower space with WBBT, WRLH, and formerly WVRN.The transmitter tower had originally been on Wilkinson Rd in Henrico County.During this station's life,it has been marked by several unrelated incidents of controversy, and a plethora of call letter, owners and format changes over the years.

Contents 1 History 2 Criticism 3 Current Line-up 4 Station Management 5 External links

[edit] History

106.5 started broadcasting in the 1950s as WLEE-FM,simulcasting the sister WLEE-AM's successful Top 40 format.This was an "assigned frequency' during a period that the FCC was assigning FM frequencies to AM stations to promote use of the then little used FM band.Shortly thereafter,WLEE-AM did not see the need for an FM sister station,and donated the FM frequency to Union Theological Seminary.in 1957 using the 106.5 frequency donated by WLEE,and the former studio and tower of WRNL,who had moved to a new location,the seminary signed on WRFK with a non-commercial classical and fine arts format.WRFK-FM operated until 1988.The seminary discovered that their charter did not allow them to operate a radio station and decided to sell the station.A deal was made with the local Federated Arts Council to buy the station and preserve the format,but a larger offer came from from a commercial radio operator shortly thereafter and the seminary decided to go with the larger offer.This caused quite a bit of controversy which resulted in several stories appearing in the local papers about the possible loss of the Fine Arts Format.Thought the efforts of the public support groups and some interested businessmen and congressmen who wanted the Fine Arts Format preserved,Commonwealth Public Broadcasting,owners of local Public TV stations WCVE & WCVW,were granted a noncommercial FM license WCVE-FM' first at 101.1 then later at 88.9 signed on, and brought the old WRFK staff,music library and most of their programming to the station, and 106.5 was sold by the Seminary to Daytona Broadcasting and became a standard commercial station as WVMX, Mix 106.5,with a Rock 40 format.Several months later, the station flipped formats to Heavy metal and became "MX106.5".This only lasted a month, and the station went to an Oldies format as WVGO ("Virginia's Golden Oldies"), an oldies station. In 1991 Daytona sold the station to Benchmark Communications,with local partners John Crowley & Guy Spiller,who flipped it to AAA format,staffed mostly by former employees of crosstown Heritage rocker WRXL,who was looked upon by the former staffers as too commercial and restrictive. At first the format was a free form type format more akin to a college station with jocks being allowed freedom on the air and to bring in their own records.The station was also home to Page Wilson's "Out Of The Blue Revue" and the late Eric E Stanley's "Bee Bop Boogie and Blues" show. Over the next year the station evolved into a AAA format. WVGO's general ratings slipped while it maintained its AAA format. In late 1994, Benchmark brought in a new Program Director who dumped all the specialty programming and the format unofficially slid into a more alternative format 24/7 as the station had a new competitor, Alternative rock, WBZU 104.7 The Buzz.Another move was to bring in the syndicated Howard Stern morning show started October 1994. The Stern show did not garner the expected high ratings, only reaching 10th place overall. The Stern show also generated much local controversy and protests which caused WVGO to lose advertising, and a complaint to the FCC about a Stern bit eventually brought Benchmark an FCC fine. In Spring 1995, Benchmark sold WVGO-FM and sister Classic rock WLEE-FM (this was a "later" version of WLEE-FM,which had been previously,WBCI,WQKS,WQSF,WDCK and soon after became became WKLR) to the owners of WBZU, known as ABS Communications, owned by local music & radio entrepreneur Kenny Brown,who cancelled Howard Stern due to poor ratings and ion the same day shut down WVGO and moved WBZU to that frequency (moving the WVGO calls to the now vacated 104.7 frequency and flipping it to oldies). In 1998, ABS was merged with SFX Broadcasting.In September of 1998, new management decided to dump the alternative format, citing low revenues. They stunted with 24 hours of construction sound effects loop and later stunted as Soft Rock "Sunny 106.5"and a few days later switched to oldies as "Cool 106.5" in September 1998 and changed its call letters to WRCLin October 1998.WRCL's owners SFX went thru a series of mergers,first as Capstar, then AMFM.In the fall of 2000,AMFM merged with Clear Channel who assumed ownership of the station.On June 11, 2001, the station flipped to Mainstream Urban as 106.5 The Beat and changed call to WBTJ. This was the second time that "The Beat" had been used as a radio logo in Richmond, as "Dancing Oldies" WBBT, and just a few months before, that station flipped formats to 80s and 90s as "Star 1073".

[edit] Criticism

Since late 2005, WBTJ has been at the center of controversy. The controversy is due the station management's decision to change from Doug Banks Morning Show to Star & Bucwild Morning Show. That reality would become clear as of May 2006 when, under Clear Channel's orders, Star (born Troi Torain) was fired from sister station WWPR where the syndicated show was based from for making threats against the child of rival DJ Envy of WQHT and also endangering the welfare of Envy's wife, who in turn filed charges against Star. He would be arrested later for this, and ordered to stay away from Envy and his family. Star's show would be replaced by Big Tigger and Egypt for a week until that would be replaced with Big Boy's Neighborhood based out of Los Angeles hip hop station KPWR.The station later brought back The Doug Banks Show in the morning.

[edit] Current Line-up

• The Steve Harvey Morning Show - 6 - 10AM
• Deja Vu - 10AM - 2PM
• Mike Street - 2 - 6PM
• Cap City Crunk Quad with Sir RJ and King Tutt - 6 - 10PM
• 106 Afterhours (slow jams 10PM to 2AM) - 10PM - 6AM

[edit] Station Management

• General Manager Ruth Arlene Jones
• Operations Manager Bill Cahill
• Program Director Aaron Maxwell
• Music Director Mike Street

[edit] External links

• 106.5 the Beat Official Homepage