| City of license | Cleveland, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Greater Cleveland |
| Branding | 106.5 The Lake |
| Slogan | We Play Anything |
| Frequency | 106.5 (MHz) (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | May 4, 1960 (as WXEN) |
| Format | Analog/HD-1: Adult hits HD-2: AAA |
| ERP | 11,500 watts |
| HAAT | 316 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 59594 |
| Callsign meaning | W-"THe LaKe" |
| Former callsigns | 1997-2011: WMVX 1984-1997: WLTF 1977-1984: WZZP 1960-1977: WXEN 1959-1960: WABQ-FM |
| Owner | Clear Channel Communications |
| Sister stations | WAKS, WGAR-FM, WMJI, WMMS, WTAM |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 1065TheLake.com |
WHLK (106.5 FM) — branded 106.5 The Lake — is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio broadcasting an adult hits format. Its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio.
Contents |
The station was originally supposed to be the home of WJMO-FM before a studio/call letter/format swap took place between the owners of WJMO and WSRS (now WERE) in 1958, putting the license in the hands of Tuschman Broadcasting Company. When the facility signed on the air, it took the WABQ-FM calls, matching its AM sister station. In 1960, the station became WXEN, whose calls stood for Xenophon Zapis, a show producer on the station that later helped to establish WZAK (but otherwise had no ties whatsoever to Tuschman's ownership). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, WXEN and WZAK both featured mostly nationality programming, that is, one or two hour programs devoted to music and programming for different nationalities, such as Polish, Slovenian or Hungarian, with program hosts speaking in the native language. It used the slogan "The Station of the Nations." Tuschman Broadcasting Company sold WXEN and WABQ to Booth Broadcasting of Detroit in 1964 (which owned both stations well into the 1980s). Booth American installed a rock format on March 13, 1977 with the name "ZIP 106",[1] changing the call letters to WZZP on March 21, 1977.
The station changed to WLTF on March 5, 1984 and had an adult contemporary format as "Lite Rock 106½." Its "Lovelite" jingles were created for the station by Jim Brickman in 1987. WLTF was Cleveland's number one radio station through the late 1980s and early 1990s,[2] with its morning program hosted by "Trapper Jack" Elliott also rated number one. Billboard magazine named WLTF the "Adult Contemporary Station of the Year" in 1991. Soon other stations such as WQAL and WDOK started competing head-to-head with similar formats and gaining market share.
Booth Broadcasting went public and changed its name to Secret Communications in 1994, ultimately selling off both WLTF and WTAM to Jacor Communications in July 1997. The station flipped to Hot AC and changed its call letters to WMVX on October 17, 1997. The station had always been a very gold-based Hot AC with a focus on pop hits from the 1980s.
It had been home to the popular local Brian & Joe Radio Show from September 1998 until their dismissal in April 2009 as part of Clear Channel's nationwide budget and salary cuts.
The station had called itself Mix 106-5 (one-oh-six five) until 2009 when it became Mix 106.5 (one-oh-six point five).
On November 12, 2010, WMVX flipped to an all Christmas music format, which lasted until Christmas Day. Mix 106.5 went back to its Hot AC format until 10 a.m. the following Wednesday (December 29), at which point it began to stunt by playing a wide variety of music (ranging from Destiny's Child to Merle Haggard to polkas and classical music). The station's website contained a countdown to the time that a new format would take effect, which was on the morning of January 3, 2011. Leading up to the change, an hour of songs with "New" in the title were played, such as Honeymoon Suite's New Girl Now, The Shins's New Slang, the theme to The Newlywed Game, and Dead or Alive's Brand New Lover.
At 7:30 a.m. on January 3, 2011, it was announced that 106.5 would be known as 106.5 The Lake and would feature an adult hits format (similar to the Jack FM style format). The format was debuted with the boast that they would "play anything other stations in Cleveland would not dare play together". Following the announcement of the name change, it was stated that the station would play 5,000 songs in a row, without commercials, to kick off the new format. The first song to be played on the new format was Ian Hunter's "Cleveland Rocks".
On January 17, 2011, WMVX changed their call letters to WHLK to go with the "The Lake" branding.
WHLK is programmed by Tony Matteo.
Station imaging for "The Lake" is being done by voice-over veterans Ann Dewig and character actor Ken Campbell.
For the stations' entire tenure as Mix 106.5 (1997–2010), the station aired both the 80s and 90s versions of Backtrax USA with Kid Kelly. From 2004-2009, WMVX also carried American Top 20 with Casey Kasem until the show ended production. And from 2009–2010, it aired the weekday Valentine in the Morning show, based from KBIG-FM in Los Angeles.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||