WNOX

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For the legendary Knoxville, Tennessee radio station, see WNML.

WNOX (100.3 FM) is a radio station in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. It broadcasts a News/Talk format and is currently being operated by Citadel Broadcasting under a time brokerage agreement from the station's ownership, Oak Ridge FM, Inc.

[edit] History

100.3 FM was originally licensed as WOKI-FM from 1972 until 2005. During this time, WOKI 100.3 became quite a popular Knoxville station, airing formats from Top 40 to Country to AAA. While the news/talk format and the call letters WNOX have been active on 100.3 for over three years, 100.3 is still occasionally referred to as WOKI, and WNML-AM 990 is even more frequently mistaken as WNOX-AM.

For years, the WNOX call letters belonged to the frequency AM 990. In November 1921, WNOX signed on the air as WNAV, the oldest radio station in Tennessee and one of the ten oldest in the country, and was licensed broadcast at 833kHZ. Within the span of 19 years, the call letters changed to WNOX, and the station frequency changed many times, eventually settling at AM 990 in March 1941.

The old WNOX-AM 990 studios were located in downtown Knoxville, from street level to high atop the Andrew Johnson hotel. In the 1950s and 60s, WNOX was home to the popular lunchtime program "The Midday Merry-go-Round" and weekend program "The Tennessee Barndance," which were both very influential in the early days of country music. Legendary station manager Lowell Blanchard hosted the programs for many years in downtown Knoxville, and lunch crowds pack the station's downtown auditorium to see the daily programs. ^[1] Seeking a bigger performance area, WNOX moved its studios to Whittle Springs in north Knoxville. The Whittle Springs facility included a large auditorium for live performances, but after the move from downtown, the live musical performances were never the same. Once the crowds diminished, the live performances were called off.

The 1960s brought a new era for WNOX. The station became a popular Top 40 station, and remained that way until the late 70s, when the station switched to AC. In the early 1980s, the station was bought again and flipped to country, and WNOX was never the same.

WNOX's legendary call letters were changed to WTNZ in 1988. However, within a few months Dick Broadcasting (WIVK) purchased WTNZ-AM 990. Dick donated AM 850, its old daytime-only frequency, to The University of Tennessee, and the 990 frequency, which could air nighttime programming, quickly became WIVK-AM and airing the programming of WIVK-FM. Within a few years, WIVK-AM began experimenting with news/talk programming, eventually phasing into a news/talk format 24/7. ^[2]

Dick Broadcasting then acquired WNOX-FM 99.1 FM in Loudon, which became a simulcast signal for the news/talk programming WIVK-AM 990. Shortly thereafter, the AM 990 call letters were changed back to WNOX-AM, an appropriate move, since 99.1 FM ironically held the WNOX-FM call letters and AM 990 was known as WNOX-AM for many prior decades. The news/talk format resided on 99.1 FM and 990 AM, jointly called "NewsTalk99 WNOX" until the move to 100.3 FM in 2005.

[edit] Programming

Starting at 5:30AM, the "Hallerin Hilton Hill Show" is on the air until 10:00AM. From 10:00AM until 12:00PM Neal Boortz is broadcast. At noon the station picks up the "Rush Limbaugh Show" and broadcasts it until 3:00PM. At that time, the "Phil Show" hosted by Phil Williams is broadcast until 6:00PM. Sean Hannity begins at that time, and continues until 9:00PM, where a re-run of the final hour of Neal Boortz is broadcast. At 10:00PM Mark Levin airs, followed at midnight by "Coast to Coast AM" with George Noory.

The station is an affiliate of the Tennessee Titans radio network.^[3]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• WNOX official website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WNOX
• Radio Locator information on WNOX
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WNOX

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