| City of license | Brookfield, Wisconsin |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Branding | Big Buck Country 106.9 FM |
| Slogan | Milwaukee's Country Legends |
| Frequency |
106.9 FM MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | August 1995 |
| Format | Classic country HD2: WJYI (Christian/brokered) |
| ERP | 4,400 watts |
| HAAT | 116 meters |
| Class | A |
| Facility ID | 67484 |
| Callsign meaning | Z BucK; calls were already held by sister Saga station in Keene, New Hampshire |
| Former callsigns | WLJU (2/1993 – 6/1995) WFMI (6/1995 – 5/1997) WXPT (5/1997 – 11/1997) WPNT (11/1997 – 4/1999) WMJO (4/1999 – 6/1999) WJMR (6/1999 – 12/2000) WFMR (12/2000 – 6/2007) WJZX (6/2007 – 5/2010) WNQW (5/2010 – 6/2010) |
| Owner | Saga Communications (Saga Communications of Milwaukee, LLC) |
| Sister stations | WHQG, WJMR-FM, WJYI, WKLH |
| Webcast | Listen Live HD2 |
| Website | bigbuck1069.com |
WZBK-FM (106.9 FM) is a classic country radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, licensed to the suburb of Brookfield, with transmitter facilities at the Milwaukee Radio Group complex on the west side of Milwaukee. The station is owned by Saga Communications. The station is branded as "Big Buck Country 106.9".
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The 106.9 frequency came into being in Milwaukee when it was licensed as WLJU on February 10, 1993. The new station was owned by Harris Classical Broadcasting, which also owned Milwaukee's heritage Classical station, WFMR. It formally signed on for the first time in August 1995 as WFMI, playing a satellite-fed smooth jazz format. A more powerful and resourceful station, WJZI (93.3) converted from a failing rock format as WQFM to smooth jazz in 1996, giving WFMI stiff competition.
Both stations were sold to Saga Communications and WFMI was quickly switched to a Modern AC format, becoming WXPT on May 14, 1997. They were known on the air as "106.9 The Point". When Chicago's WPNT changed formats a few months later, 106.9 picked up the WPNT call sign. They had modest success for a small station, but a few of the bigger stations in the market took notice and adjusted their playlists to fight off the young suburban upstart.
The station is also hamstrung by a traditionally weak signal which has never covered the important suburban markets like the Waukesha and Ozaukee County suburbs very well, and is virtually non-existent north of the Sheboygan County line. This is because the frequency was a short-spacing allocation which was shared with WMUS across Lake Michigan in Muskegon, Michigan, which is at a very strong 50,000 watts compared to this station's weaker power, and it does have conflicting interference with that station on the northern rim of their coverage area.
Again, due to stiff competition, the format was changed again in April 1999, this time to a trendy new format known as Jammin' Oldies, and the call letters became WMJO (Milwaukee's Jammin' Oldies). The calls were changed a month later to WJMR and tag line to "Jammin' Hits" due to legal issues. The call sign for 106.9 became WFMR on December 12, 2000, after an in-house frequency swap with WJMR-FM.
Saga Communications moved WFMR to the 106.9 FM dial position, and WJMR-FM's format and call letters to 98.3 on December 12, 2000. This was done primarily to boost WJMR-FM's signal in the urban areas of Milwaukee, and to target WFMR toward the western and northern suburbs. Saga moved the studios to Milwaukee the year before, in 1999.
In August 2001, the format was tweaked to Urban AC adding The Tom Joyner Morning Show and changing the positioner from "Jammin' Hits" to "Today's R&B & Classic Soul", later settling with the current "Today's R&B & Old School", the entire airstaff except for Michael Hightower and Earl Stokes were let go. Afternoon host Amy Foxx was moved to overnights, later handling traffic duties prior to moving to WMIL-FM.
At midnight on June 26, 2007, ironically on the 51st anniversary of its original sign-on, WFMR ended its classical music format when it flipped to the Smooth Jazz format, a change made quickly to gain momentum from rival WJZI, which dropped the format a week earlier to become light Adult Contemporary music as WLDB/B93.3. On July 15, 2007, the station changed its call sign to WJZX.[1]
On April 24, 2007, the FCC granted what was then WFMR a construction permit to move its transmitter from its original site in Menomonee Falls to the WJYI/WHQG/WJMR tower in Milwaukee outside of the stations' main studios on McKinley Avenue. However because the station moved closer to Lake Michigan, the power was thus reduced in half from the Menomonee Falls signal to 4.4 kW in order to protect WMUS acrross the lake. WJZX's HD Radio signal was put into service in 2008, though because of the current limitations of digital radio the digital signal only covers the city of Milwaukee and eastern Waukesha County proper.
On May 27, 2010 at noon, WJZX flipped from Broadcast Architecture's syndicated satellite feed Smooth AC "Smooth Jazz Network" to a stunt format called "Tiger 106.9", which referenced Tiger Woods's scandals and featured cheating-themed music from all eras.[2] Saga had reserved the call letters WNQW, possibly referring to the currently popular "Now" format of Top 40 music and announced them publicly in the media, which may have proved to be problematic in hindsight as seen below. The format change was likely done due to the introduction of Arbitron's Portable People Meter audience measurement system in the month of June into the Milwaukee market.
BA's smooth/urban AC format remained for a period of time without local broadcasters on 106.9's HD Radio HD2 subchannel, which has since been replaced with an HD relay of sister AM station WJYI, which has a Christian/brokered programming format. Internet listeners were referred to the live stream of Saga sister station WJZA in Columbus, Ohio, which featured the same basic format and playlist structuring as the former WJZI. However, WJZA has since also changed format.
On May 28, 2010 at 9am, the 70s/80s rock station WQBW, owned by Clear Channel Communications, flipped to top 40, and was re-branded as "97.3 Radio Now." This was likely done to block Saga's attempt to brand 106.9 with the new WNQW calls as "106.9 Now".[3] 106.9's new call sign was registered with the FCC on May 21, along with the new "Now" branding. Clear Channel appeared ready to reformat "The Brew" even before WJZX's stunting, and put it into place earlier than expected to claim the "Now" brand before 106.9 had the opportunity. 97.3 took the calls WRNW on June 10.
The "Tiger Radio" stunt carried over into May 29 before a switch to songs featuring the word "America" in the title throughout the remainder of the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Saga also could not cancel the WNQW calls, which were implemented as scheduled on May 28,[1] so it retained those calls until it filed for a new set.
The station switched to another stunt format on June 2, playing The Beatles' entire catalog in alphabetical order. The catalog looped several times through the next few days.[4]
On June 7, at 3pm, 106.9 finally debuted their new permanent format, with the name "Big Buck Country 106.9." The station played classic country, which focused on country music from the late 1970s through early 1990s and debuted with the Alan Jackson hit "Gone Country". This move puts 106.9 in direct competition with AM Clear Channel operation WOKY (920), Clear Channel station WMIL-FM (106.1), and West Bend's WBWI-FM (92.5), which has most of its audience in Milwaukee's northern suburbs.[5] The call letters WZBK-FM became effective June 15, 2010, calls already in use by a sister AM operation in Keene, New Hampshire.
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