| City of license | Miami |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Miami metro area |
| Branding | Easy 93.1 |
| Slogan | Continuous Soft and Easy Favorites |
| Frequency | 93.1 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| Format | Soft AC HD2: Dance |
| ERP | 100,000 watts |
| HAAT | 307 meters |
| Class | C0 |
| Facility ID | 40408 |
| Former callsigns | WTMI (1971-2001) WPYM (2002-2005) WHDR (2005-2010) |
| Owner | Cox Media Group |
| Webcast | Listen Live - Party 93.1 HD2 |
| Website | easy93.com party931.com (HD2) |
WFEZ (93.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Soft AC format on analog and HD1 and a Dance format on its HD2 channel. Licensed to Miami, Florida, USA, the stations serves Miami-Dade, Broward, and most of Palm Beach Counties. WFEZ is currently owned by Cox Radio, Inc.[1]
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WFEZ was originally WAFM, then WKAT-FM, then classical WTMI, which ran from 1971 to noon, New Year's Eve 2001, when it flipped to a "Pure Dance" format and became WPYM, "Party 93.1, South Florida's Pure Dance Channel." The station earned an "Innovators Award" from Billboard magazine in 2002 and a "Best Dance Radio Station Award" at the 2004 Dancestar USA honors.[2]
WPYM's demise came on February 14, 2005. With poor ratings, Cox Radio took advantage of the sudden departure of WZTA (when it flipped from Rock to Hispanic Rhythmic as WMGE) by picking up the Active Rock format and taking the call letters WHDR. It became a mainstream rock station per Mediabase & Nielsen BDS reports in 2008 after continued failure with the active rock format.
On Monday January 5, 2009, the Bubba the Love Sponge Radio Network signed on. This popular morning show was heard weekday mornings from 6am until 10am.
On November 20, 2010 at 7 a.m. WHDR began stunting with Christmas music, with a new format after the holidays. No reason was given for the abrupt flip but one of the factors can be found in its ratings, where in 93 Rock's 5 years in the format it has struggled to reach the top 10 in the Arbitrons. According to GM Brian Elam, he admitted that despite the attempt to improve the musical direction and adding Bubba, he cites that WHDR was underperforming in the ratings and has hinted that the new format won't be unveiled until after New Year's Day 2011.[3]
On December 11, the station began promoting "Easy 93.1", which is stated in the bumpers to be a format similar to WDUV Tampa Bay (Soft AC), playing "soft and easy favorites." Whether this was just a stunt or a genuine promotion of the new format was unknown as of December 11. On December 21, Cox Radio applied for use of the WFEZ call letters. This action made the format change less likely to be a stunt.[4] On December 23, the "93 Rock" page was replaced with an "Easy 93.1" splash page. At midnight on December 26, 2010, the station flipped to a Soft AC format and became "Easy 93.1". The first 5 songs to be played were "Easy" by The Commodores, "Something" by The Beatles, "You've Got a Friend" by James Taylor, "My Special Angel" by Bobby Helms, and "Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston. With WFEZ flipping to AC, this move places it in competition with heritage AC WLYF and WFEZ's sister station WFLC, whose playlist has started to shift towards a Hot AC direction.
On March 24, 2008, Cox radio relaunched "Party 93.1" on its HD2 subcarrier. Like its predecessor, this one is also running jockless but the dance music being played this time around is more broadened with more music from the Trance & House genre. In March 2011, the station, which had only been available on HD radio devices within the WFEZ listening area, began streaming on the internet again for the first time since 2006.
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