WPOW (FM)

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WPOW-FM
City of license	Miami/Fort Lauderdale
Broadcast area	South Florida
Branding	"Power 96"
First air date	early 1970s
Frequency	96.5 (MHz)
Format	Rhythmic Top 40
ERP	100,000 watts
Class	C3
Callsign meaning	W POWER
Owner	Beasley Broadcast Group
Website	http://power96.com/

WPOW-FM (POWER 96) is a Rhythmic Top 40 station serving the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area. The Beasley Broadcast Group owns the station, which operates at 96.5MHz with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 98 kilowatts and is licensed in Miami, Florida. Its transmitter is located in Miami.

[edit] History

In the early 1970s, the 96.3 signal was home to a very successful Top 40 CHR station, known as 96 WMYQ (the successor to WGBS-FM), which became 96X (and a call letter change to WMJX) on October 1st, 1975. The station briefly flipped to an all-disco format in April 1978 (Disco 96), but returned to its prior Top 40 format in November of that year.

The station lost its license and signed off on February 15th, 1981. The last song played before sign-off was "The Long And Winding Road" by the Beatles. The last words, tearfully spoken on-air by the DJ, Stuart Elliott were "96X..Is WMJX, Miami"

On June 15, 1985, the station was brought back on the air under new ownership (Wodlinger Broadcasting) as a non-stop Top 40 countdown station (The Super 16) under the same 96X name, this time with the call letters WCJX. However, after another ownership change in May 1986 (from Wodlinger Broadcasting to Beasley-Reed Broadcasting), they would change format on August 4, 1986 at 7 a.m., when the station flipped to a Dance Top 40 format under the name Power 96 (with a change in call letters to WPOW), playing mostly dance and early rap.

As WPOW, the station signed on with deejays Mindy Frumkes and Mark Moseley, and played Timex Social Club's "Rumors" continuously for the first 24 hours. The move paid off in monster ratings, and WPOW quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the Rhythmic Top 40 community. Some months earlier, WPOW (Still WCJX) moved up the dial from 96.3 to 96.5 in order to accommodate a recent sign-on at 95.7 in nearby Homestead, Florida.

Despite the station's success with their unique format, WPOW was known for adding non-Rhythmic product (the occasional Rock or Pop track that was hot at the time) in the late 1980s, a practice which would be phased out by the early 1990s. It was at that time that they began embracing R&B and Hip-Hop music, which remain staples on the station today as the Dance product had been phased out by 2002 (the year after WPYM's 12/31/01 debut). They have also embraced the Hispanic Rhythmic and Dancehall genres of music, as the station caters to a large Hispanic and Caribbean audience in South Florida. In this fashion, WPOW's main competitor is Mainstream Urban rival WEDR.

In 2005 WPOW launched an HD FM station "HD DASH DANCE2". The sub-carrier broadcasts Dance music 24/7. A similar "DASH-2" HD subchannel exists at sister station WRDW-FM "WIRED 96-5" in Philadelphia.

[edit] External links

• Power 96's website
• HD-Dash2's website
• Radio Locator web site
• South Florida Radio History web site
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WPOW