WBLS

WBLS is an urban adult contemporary FM radio station in New York City, operating on 107.5 MHz. WBLS is owned by Inner City Broadcasting Corporation along with sister station WLIB (1190 AM). The two stations share studios in Midtown Manhattan, and WBLS' transmitter is located on the Empire State Building.

Early history

The 107.5 frequency in New York City signed on in July 1951 as WEVD-FM, simulcasting its sister station at 1330 AM. Within a few years, WEVD-FM moved up the dial to 97.9, and 107.5 went silent.

On September 15, 1965, the New Broadcasting Company, then-owners of WLIB, purchased the frequency and relaunched it as WLIB-FM. As the Federal Communications Commission recently instituted a rule prohibiting full-time AM/FM simulcasting in large markets, WLIB-FM was programmed with a jazz music format. The stations were split up in 1970, when Inner City Broadcasting purchased WLIB (AM); WLIB-FM was then renamed WBLS. Inner City reunited the pair with its purchase of WBLS in 1972. WBLS continued as a jazz station, though it would evolve into a more eclectic format that included rhythm and blues, soul music and vocalese (poetry and prose, such as Nikki Giovanni and the Last Poets). This format was called "The Total Black Experience in Sound." The evolution of this became the urban contemporary format.

Urban radio pioneer

Early in 1975 WBLS made the first shift towards its present-day format—which was derived from its "Total Black Experience in Sound" moniker—by becoming the flagship station of the Mutual Broadcasting System's Mutual Black Network (now Sheridan Broadcasting's American Urban Radio Networks).

With its distinctive on-air station ID (its call letters echoing in full left-right-left-right stereo effect), WBLS was often the number one FM station in New York from during the middle 1970s. During this time its main competition was the original WKTU (then at 92.3 FM), a dance/disco station whose music rosters included black artists. Afterward, though, the station's ratings fell to number three. In August 1981, group owner RKO General went after WBLS' urban audience by reformatting adult contemporary WXLO (98.7 FM) into WRKS ("Kiss FM"). WRKS skyrocketed from the bottom of the pack to the top-five in the Arbitron ratings in just one rating period.

WBLS, WKTU and WRKS battled fiercely for the urban audience in the early 1980s. By that time, the three stations together so thoroughly dominated the New York-area radio ratings that they sent rock-and-roll-formatted radio fleeing to the suburbs -- and drove the final nail into the coffin for music-formatted AM radio in New York, as WABC and WNBC each saw a sharp decline in their respective audiences. WABC, the biggest of the two and the dominant music station for a generation, eventually dropped music altogether and switched to a talk format in May 1982.

Response to rap

In the early 1980s, early forms of hip hop music became popular among younger urban audiences. However, WBLS was slow to embrace the genre in its musical rotation. On the other hand WRKS was not, and soon rap music was an integral device in their pulling ahead of WBLS in listenership. In response to WRKS' weekend rap shows emceed by DJ Red Alert, WBLS hired Mr. Magic in 1983 to conduct a weekend hip hop show and added more rap music to its own playlists.

By the late 1980s WBLS became better known as a straight-ahead R&B station, and one that was also reluctant to play rap music. Inner City Broadcasting insisted that rap—particularly the harder-edged and often profanity-laced gangsta rap subgenre—plagued the minds of young African Americans, especially teenagers. Many hip-hop artists, most notably Chuck D of Public Enemy, blamed the station for not reaching out to the youth and contributing to the formation of "white-owned Black radio." His comments alluded to stations such as WRKS (which by that time had been sold by RKO General to Summit Communications Group) as being a station which catered to Black audiences but was not owned by African-Americans.

In 1993 Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, led a threat to boycott the station if they played any form of gangsta rap. Butts' protests culminated in his bulldozing a pile of hip-hop recordings during a rally. In response to the protests, WBLS excised most hip hop music from its air and carefully screened what it did play for content and language.^[1] WBLS fully reintroduced rap back on its playlists in 1997, but has flip-flopped on the decision several times since.

Dealing with competition

WBLS' long battle with WRKS over the New York City area's urban audience has been a hard-fought one, with each station trading places in the ratings. WBLS has always used its heritage as an African-American owned station as its main selling point. Since the middle 1980s, however, WBLS has usually been the number-two station behind WRKS, who has always benefitted from ownership with greater financial resources.

Though mostly fought in the Arbitron books, the battle between the two stations has also spilled out over the airwaves at times. Each station's resident hip-hop "mixmasters" were key figures in the Bridge Wars of the mid-1980s. In 1994, WBLS introduced the market's first Urban Adult Contemporary format. But in 1995, after WRKS was purchased by Emmis Communications and dropped all hip-hop music in favor of an adult R&B format, WBLS countered with a controversial advertising campaign labelling WRKS as a "plantation station."^[2] WBLS shortly reverted to urban contemporary, only to exit again in 2004, when WBLS switched from urban contemporary to urban adult contemporary.

WKTU dropped out of the Urban audience race in 1985, when it was sold to Infinity Broadcasting and became rock-formatted WXRK. In 1986, Emmis Communications converted rock-formatted WAPP (103.5 FM) into WQHT (now at 97.1 FM), whose original dance-heavy format drew listeners away from numerous radio stations around the city. WQHT's early success forced WBLS to incorporate dance music to its playlists again.

WBLS is presently one of five urban-formatted FM stations in the New York City market. The others include its traditional rival WRKS and two hip-hop outlets, WQHT and Clear Channel-owned WWPR-FM (105.1 FM), although WQHT is a rhythmic contemporary. WWPR's sister station WKTU, revived in 1996 at 103.5 FM as a Rhythmic adult contemporary station, is also considered as a competitor.

Notable personalities

WBLS is currently the originating station of Steve Harvey's syndicated morning show, and was previously the flagship of Wendy Williams' syndicated afternoon drive program, which ended in August 2009. The station also features Hal Jackson, a pioneering Black radio personality and co-founder of parent company Inner City Broadcasting, whose Sunday Classics program has aired weekly since the station's inception. Longtime New York urban radio personality Jeff Foxx replaced Williams as afternoon host in January 2010.

During its heyday in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Frankie Crocker was WBLS' program director and afternoon disc jockey, and is credited with defining what became the station's signature Urban Contemporary sound. Crocker served three stints at WBLS during his career.

Other notable personalities who have appeared on WBLS include: Chuck Leonard, Ken "Spider" Webb, Vy Higgensen, Vaughan Harper, Champagne, G. Keith Alexander, Yvonne Mobley, Lamarr Renee, Carlos DeJesus, Doug Banks, Paul Mooney, Egypt, Loni Love and MC Lyte, amongst many.

References

External links

• WBLS Website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WBLS
• Radio-Locator information on WBLS
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WBLS