WJLT

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WJLT is a radio station licensed to broadcast at 105.3 on the FM frequency in Evansville, Indiana.

[edit] History

The station started as WVHI-FM, a religious station.

In 1982, the owners decided to compete with WBKR and changed to a country music format. The station became WYNG (Wing 105). WYNG was successful through the 1980s, but then things began to sour for WYNG. The first blow came when WBKR started to target Evansville a little more (it was primarily targeting Owensboro, Kentucky, but had a 100 kW signal that boomed into Evansville). The second blow came in 1992 when WKDQ dumped its AC/Oldies hybrid format in favor of country, immediately taking numbers from WYNG. A third blow came, when in a desperate move WYNG dumped its Wing 105 moniker and started calling itself Y105 and trying to target younger listeners. It blew off the older segment and WYNG found itself as the 3rd country station.

WYNG was later acquired by Cumulus Media (along with WGBF-FM/AM, WDKS, and WTRI) and later spun to Clear Channel Communications. Clear Channel also acquired WBKR and WKDQ, and all of a sudden the final blow for WYNG was to happen. Clear Channel elected to move WYNG to the 94.9 frequency which was a 50 kW facility, but the transmitter was further north in Mount Carmel, Indiana, this took WYNG from a 7 share to a 2 share in one book! Meanwhile, Cleqr Channel signed on a new AC to compete with WIKY, WJLT, Lite FM 105.3, but an equal disaster for 105.3 happened, the ratings went from that 7 with country to a 3 share! Many theories were brought as to why 105.3 failed with AC, from the station sounding too lite to they never should have tried to mess with WIKY in the first place. However, it was clear that AC was not working and when Clear Channel spun off its Evansville cluster to Regent. Regent made some moves. First off, it flipped WYNG to sports under ESPN Radio. South Central responded by dropping oldies and the WJPS calls at 93.5 and going country with WLFW-FM and Regent saw that as an opportunity to flip WJLT to oldies. WJLT has returned the 105.3 to similar ratings to what WYNG had in its 105.3 days.

[edit] WJLT call letters

In the mid-1980s, the WJLT calls were assigned to a station in Crozet-Charlottesville, VA on 102.3 FM. The station was known as Lite 102.3 FM and featured an AC satellite format. The station was co-owned with WPED-AM (810 on the dial), which had a contemporary country format. Both were owned at the time by Elting Enterprises. The stations were later sold.