| City of license | Boston, Masschusetts |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Greater Boston |
| Branding | "Jam'n 94.5" |
| Slogan | Hip Hop and Today's Hit Music! Boston's station for Hip Hop and Today's Hottest Music! #1 for Hip Hop! |
| Frequency |
94.5 MHz (also on HD Radio) 94.5 HD-2 Classic Hip-Hop |
| First air date | March 31, 1948[1] |
| Format | Rhythmic top 40 |
| ERP | 9,200 watts |
| HAAT | 353 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 53972 |
| Callsign meaning | JaM'N |
| Former callsigns | WHDH-FM (1948-1972) WCOZ (1972-1984) WZOU (1984-1993) |
| Owner | Clear Channel Communications (AMFM Radio Licenses, L.L.C.) |
| Sister stations | WKOX, WXKS, WXKS-FM |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | www.jamn945.com |
WJMN (94.5 FM; "Jam'n 94.5") is a successful Rhythmic Top 40 radio station licensed to Boston, Massachusetts, USA, under the ownership of Clear Channel Communications. Its current slogan is "Hip Hop and Today's Hit Music!" and can be heard as far north as the White Mountains under good conditions, and in portions of Maine, Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut and southeastern Vermont. Boston is the largest market without an Urban Radio formatted station; heritage R&B AM daytimer WILD, which served the area's African-American community since 1967, began airing China Radio International programming in June 2011, and its one-time Hip Hop sister station WBOT (which later became Urban AC WILD-FM), has been defunct since the summer of 2006 when Radio One (which owned both stations) sold it. The station has recently tweaked its sound and playlist to become more Rhythmic and less Urban sounding, and it has also changed its on-air slogan to "Hip Hop and Today's Hit Music".
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WJMN was originally WHDH-FM: a sister station to, and simulcast of, WHDH (AM). In 1965, to comply with an Federal Communications Commission regulation limiting simulcasting between commonly-owned AM and FM stations in the same city, WHDH-FM began separate programming with an automated "beautiful music" format in Stereo. In late 1967, WHDH-FM changed its format to automated Progressive Rock (pre-dating future FM rocker WBCN/104.1 by several months), but by late 1969, the station returned to automated "beautiful music" after a little "intervention", allegedly from WHDH Inc.'s Chief Executive Officer, Harold J. Clancy (who did not particularly approve of putting rock and roll on "MY FM station!"). Although this format remained until 1975, it was not particularly successful, despite a 1973 attempt to establish a separate identity by changing the call letters to WCOZ (as in "Cozy").
Originally owned by Herald-Traveler Corp., parent of the Boston Herald-Traveler newspaper, the station was sold to Blair Radio in 1972, and in the 1980s to Sconnix. Several ownership changes followed which eventually resulted in Clear Channel acquiring WJMN.
In the summer of 1975, WCOZ announced that it would change its format to album-oriented rock, which it did on August 15 of that year. Although automated at first, a team of live announcers was hired, led by Ken Shelton and program director Clark Smidt. By the end of 1975, WCOZ had live announcers around the clock that also included George Taylor Morris, Leslie Palmiter, Lisa Karlin, Marc Parenteau and Robert Desiderio. WCOZ's format was tightened significantly in 1978, when new Program Director Tommy Hadges arrived from arch rival WBCN. Marc Parenteau simultaneously defected to WBCN, at that point.
In 1980, another new program director John Sebastian arrived and made some changes. WCOZ was still a rock station, but its focus was tightened to loud, hard rock (or "Kick-Ass Rock 'N Roll", according to the station's slogan) with minimal announcer talk and short play list. It was extremely successful, peaking with a phenomenal 13.1 in the ratings, in 1982, but with the changes in rock music during the 1980s, the station's success did not last; its rival WBCN moved past it in the ratings. By late 1983, WCOZ had changed formats to a short lived Adult Contemporary format.
In 1984, the station's call letters were changed to WZOU. P.D. Harry Nelson had success with a top 40 format including personalities J.J.McKay, Tom Jeffries, Karen Blake, Brian Pierce, Bob Campbell, Dan Justin, Clarence Barnes. Z-94 continued in that format until adopting its current Rhythmic Contemporary Hits format on May 11, 1993.
Since its inception in 1993, Jam'n 94.5 has become one of Boston's most successful radio stations. Even after its sale to Chancellor in 1996, station management decided not to tamper with the format as they see WJMN as part of a winning combination with Top 40/CHR sister station WXKS, a formula that continues to the present day. When it debuted, the direction had a balanced mix of R&B/Hip-Hop, Rhythmic Pop, and Dance product. However, by the end of 1999, it began to play a variety of music that was along the lines of Urban Contemporary Hits, heavy on the hip-hop to the extent of not playing non rap rhythmic tracks. This would last until the beginning of 2009, when WJMN began tweaking their musical selection to once again include Rhythmic/Pop-charting artists like Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Kesha, Katy Perry, David Guetta, Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina, Adele and Lady GaGa. This tweaking has sparked a lot of talk on radio message boards[2] and follows a pattern among Rhythmic-format stations that have scaled back on the heavy amount of Hip-Hop in favor of a more balanced approach. Because of this, several music trades (like Mediabase) and Arbitron have listed WJMN as Rhythmic because the audience it targets is racially mixed and the region's African-American population is not that large, and with the losses of WILD and WBOT, WJMN serves as the de facto outlet for the latter segment of that audience despite the reduction of the Hip-Hop content at the station.
The station's morning show was hosted for several years by Balthazar and Pebbles. Balthazar has since moved on, giving way to the current Ramiro and Pebbles morning show.
WJMN also has an HD2 digital feed specializing in old-school hip-hop music; it is available as an Internet broadcast as well and went on the air January 27, 2006.
WJMN radio is unrelated to WJMN-TV, a CBS affiliate in Escanaba, Michigan.
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