WKBY

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WKBY
City of license	Chatham, Virginia
Slogan	Inspirational 1080
Frequency	1080 kHz
Format	Gospel music
Power	1,000 watts day
Class	D
Facility ID	72663
Transmitter Coordinates	36°46′54.00″N 79°23′29.00″W / 36.7816667, -79.3913889
Owner	William L. Bonner

WKBY (1080 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a gospel format.Licensed to Chatham, Virginia, USA. The station is currently owned by William L. Bonner.^[1]

[edit] References

^ WKBY Facility Record. United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.

WKBY first went on the air in 1964 owned and operated by George Beasley, of the now famous Beasley Broadcast Group. In 1966 George sold the station to Everett C. Peace Jr. who formed Pittsylvania County Broadcasters Inc. Known as "The Sound Of The Big Horizon", "Country Wide KBY" and Thunder Country WKBY Clear Channel 1080, a 1000 kw AM Daytime Country music station began losing audience share and advertisers to the newly popular FM Country station WAKG around 1977 When WAKG switched from Beautiful Music to Country. By 1982 WKBY was on the skids with very little revenue or listeners. At that time Everett Peace switched format to Black Gospel, and featured many of the community preachers on the air. Listenership went back up, but due to the poor economic status of it's listeners, advertisers did not see a very big return for their advertising dollars, so once again the station billing was nearly non existent. Sustaining the small staff on income from churches paying to be on the air was nearly impossible. The station fell into foreclosure with the bank and the man that poured his life into the company for twenty four years could not bare to see everything repossesed so he shot himself to death August 8, 1990.