WDRE (FM)
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| WDRE | |
| City of license | WDRE: Calverton, New York W268AN: Plainview, New York |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Long Island |
| Branding | Party 105.3 |
| Frequency | WDRE: 105.3 (MHz) W268AN: 101.5 (MHz) |
| First air date | May 27, 1998 |
| Format | CHR/Dance |
| ERP | WDRE: 660 watts W268AN: 10 watts |
| HAAT | WDRE: 185 meters |
| Class | WDRE: A W268AN: D |
| Owner | Jarad Broadcasting Company of Calverton, Inc. |
| Sister stations | WLIR-FM, WBON |
| Website | www.party105.com |
- For the former Philadelphia radio station, see WDRE (former Philadelphia radio station).
WDRE, "Party 105.3", is a Dance Top 40 station serving the Long Island market, mostly throughout Eastern Suffolk County, but also Western Suffolk, parts of Nassau County and Southern Fairfield/New Haven Counties in Connecticut through a simulcast in Plainview, New York. The Morey Organization outlet broadcasts at 105.3 MHz with their antenna based in Manorville, New York at an effective radiated power of 660W and is licensed to Calverton-Roanoke, New York, New York. The Eastern Nassau-Western Suffolk simulcast broadcasts at 101.5 MHz with their antenna based in Plainview at an effective radiated power of 10W and is licensed to Plainview.
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[edit] History
The station signed on the air on May 27, 1998 as WXXP. Their studio was based in the same building as WLIR in Garden City, New York. At first, the station sounded similar to New York's rhythmic AC WKTU in format as they were playing older dance material. However as time went on, Party 105's playlist began to add on newer, cutting-edge dance music (house music, trance, freestyle), at times being ahead, and began serving the area with a cutting-edge dance direction, which would prove popular with listeners in the area and gave them an alternative to similarly formatted WKTU, which is also heard in the area. Despite being a Dance station it also ventured into the Rhythmic Top 40 arena as well but kept the Dance product intact.
At one time, as WLIR an alternative rock station was experimenting with dance music sounds on their 92.7 frequency, that a grass roots campaign was created, by dance music fans, to have Party 105 simulcast the station on 92.7 since both stations were owned by Jarad and those that lived west of the weak 105.3 signal in New York City could hear the cutting edge station. However, on January 9, 2004, Univision brought the 92.7 frequency to create WZAA, which simulcasts New York radio station WCAA, otherwise known as La Kalle, with an urban Spanish format, mainly consisting of reggaeton.
[edit] The Change To WDRE
On January 12, 2004 the station picked up the call letters of the former WDRE, but kept the Dance format intact.
In late 2004, as WBEA changed format to become "Blaze 101.7", Long Island's first hip-hop station, Party 105.3 added more hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton to the format while removing the majority of the dance music aspect, which infuriated the dance music fan base that relied heavily on the station for dance music since the New York City stations weren't cutting edge. In May 2005, Party 105.3 reversed this trend and began playing more dance music than they had in the past. In 2008 WBEA returned to a Top 40/CHR direction, leaving WDRE as the market's lone Rhythmic/Dance outlet.
[edit] Channelcasting & Current
On September 15, 2005 the Morey Organization, stunned everyone by flipping the station (along with 107.1 WLIR and 98.5 WBON) to Top 40 mainstream as "FM Channel 105, Party Hits". As a result, all of the on-air staff was fired. In addition, with the new format, the station would run commercial-free during the day, with the actual airtime during this period paid for by advertisers. But the move did not sit well with its listeners, and by December 19, 2005 they gave in to pressure and returned to Dance and the "Party 105.3" moniker, admitting on-air that they made a mistake.
After the change, the station became more dance music intensive often playing material that New York City Station WKTU did not touch or were "late on the game" on. After WKTU changed their format to Rhythmic Adult Contemporary on September 9, 2006, Party 105.3 changed their promos stating that they are "New York's ONLY Dance Music Station", but by September 2007 they decided to cut back on the heavy amount of Dance product by balancing the current music mix with Rhythmic Hip-Hop fare under new operations manager Vic Latino, an alumnus of WKTU and BPM.
On December 26, 2006 BusinessTalkRadio.net President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Metter announced the purchases WLIR, WBON, and WDRE for an undisclosed price [1] but the sales never closed. WBON was renamed WBZB and flipped to a business talk format on January 2, 2007 but reverted back to the WBON calls on September 10, 2007. A change in the WBON Business Talk format is reportedly pending.
On January 1, 2008, a simulcast was added via a translator at 101.5 MHZ in Plainview, New York. This simulcast covers parts of Nassau and Western Suffolk counties not reached at 105.3.
[edit] Current Disk Jockeys
- Andre
- Theo
- Goldapper
- LiL G
- Eddie T
- Vic Latino
- Bill Plax
- Pulido
- Nikki
[edit] External links
- PARTY 105.3's website
- U.S. Dance Radio Post
- U.S. Dance Radio Megamix
- Query the FCC's FM station database for WDRE
- Radio Locator information on WDRE
- WDRE (FM) at MySpace
- Party 105.3's tower on WikiMapia
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