| City of license | Grand Rapids, Michigan |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Grand Rapids, Michigan |
| Branding | 101.3 The Fox |
| Slogan | The Fox Rocks |
| Frequency | 101.3 MHz |
| First air date | 1965 |
| Format | Rock |
| ERP | 50,000 watts |
| HAAT | 128 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 51727 |
| Callsign meaning | The FoX |
| Former callsigns | WCUZ-FM (7/9/80-9/27/00) WFFX (?-7/9/80) WMLW (?-?) WYON (?-?) |
| Owner | Clear Channel Communications |
| Sister stations | WBCT, WMAX-FM, WOOD, WSNX-FM, WSRW-FM, WTKG |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 101thefoxrocks.com |
WBFX (101.3 FM, "The Fox") is a radio station broadcasting a mainstream rock format, serving the Grand Rapids, Michigan market. Its signal is heard as far east as Owosso, Michigan, as far north as Reed City, Michigan, and as far south as Portage, Michigan.
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The station first began broadcasting in the early 1960s as WMAX-FM, then later became WYON as a sister station to WION-AM in Ionia, Michigan around 1965. In the late 1970s, the station was purchased by the owners of WCUZ-AM 1230 and became WMLW "Mellow 101," a soft rock/adult contemporary station. WMLW switched to album oriented rock as WFFX "The Fox" in 1978, and then to country music in 1980 as WCUZ ('CUZ-FM 101.3...more of the music you like... on CUZ-FM." For most of the 1980s, country WCUZ was a market leader in Grand Rapids, but the station saw its market share erode after the 1992 debut of "B93," WBCT, on 93.7.
By 1998, WCUZ was co-owned with its rival station, WBCT, under the Clear Channel umbrella, and had moved to a classic country format, identifying as "Country Gold WCUZ." Clear Channel dropped the "Country Gold" format on September 24, 2000, and debuted Classic Rock "101.3 The Fox" that afternoon.
In late June 2009, the station adjusted its format towards mainstream rock, with a mix of harder classic rock songs as well as recent rock music from the 1990s and 2000s. This adjustment seems to have been made in response to the local active rock station WKLQ changing formats to sports talk. Townsquare Media's WGRD-FM answered to the demise of WKLQ, and flipped its format to active rock from alternative rock most recently after Mediabase & Nielsen BDS moved the station to the active rock panel.
WBFX is licensed for HD Radio operations and features a classic hits format called "Big Classic Hits" from Clear Channel's iHeartRadio on its HD-2 side channel. The HD-2 formerly featured an adult alternative format.
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