WBLS

WBLS

City of license	New York, New York
Broadcast area	New York City metropolitan area
Branding	"107.5 WBLS"
Slogan	"Your #1 Source for R&B!"
Frequency	107.5 (MHz) (also on HD Radio) 107.5-2 FM simulcast of WLIB (HD Radio)
First air date	July 1951
Format	Urban Adult Contemporary
ERP	4,200 watts
HAAT	415 meters
Class	B
Facility ID	28203
Callsign meaning	We Are The Total BLack Experience in Sound The World's Best-Looking Sound
Former callsigns	WEVD-FM (1951-1955) WLIB-FM (1965-1972)
Owner	YMF Media LLC (YMF Media New York Licensee LLC)
Sister stations	WLIB
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	wbls.com

WBLS (107.5 MHz.) is an urban adult contemporary FM radio station in New York City. WBLS is owned by YMF Media LLC, along with sister station WLIB (1190 AM). The two stations share studios in the West Village section of Manhattan, and WBLS' transmitting antenna is located on the Empire State Building.

YMF Media is owned jointly by investor Ronald Burkle and basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson. The firm assumed control of WBLS and WLIB's former parent company, the bankrupt Inner City Broadcasting Corporation, on October 19, 2012 at a purchase price of $180 million.^[1]

History

Early years

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 down the dial to 97.9, and 107.5 went silent.

Several years later the New Broadcasting Company, then-owners of WLIB, was awarded a construction permit for the dormant frequency and on September 15, 1965 reactivated 107.5 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 1972, when Inner City Broadcasting purchased WLIB (AM); WLIB-FM was then renamed WBLS.^[2] Inner City reunited the pair with its purchase of WBLS in 1974.^[3][4]

In the interim period prior to the Inner City takeover, WBLS continued as a jazz station. 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," which would eventually evolve into 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." ^{[citation needed]} 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.^[5] 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 had 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. From the middle 1980s onward, however, WBLS usually was the number-two station behind WRKS, who had always benefited from ownership with greater financial resources.

Though mostly fought in the Arbitron books, the battle between the two stations 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 a similar adult R&B format, WBLS countered with a controversial advertising campaign labeling WRKS as a "plantation station."^[6] WBLS shortly reverted to urban contemporary, only to exit again in 2004 when WBLS switched 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.

Soul survivor

Following Emmis Communications' decision to lease WRKS's frequency to ESPN Radio beginning on April 30, 2012, WBLS became the New York market's only urban adult contemporary station. As a sidebar, WBLS acquired WRKS's intellectual property and "heritage" as an urban outlet. What was called a "merger" of the two outlets was made four days earlier, on April 26, with a joint statement on both stations' respective websites.^[7] In addition to acquiring WRKS's intellectual property, WBLS and WLIB also moved into Emmis's New York production facility in the West Village section of Manhattan, into studio space vacated by WRKS (now WEPN-FM); the relocation took place during the week of May 21, 2012.

WBLS is presently one of four urban-formatted FM stations in the New York City market; the others include 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.

During the 2012-13 and 2013-14 NBA seasons, WBLS broadcast selected New York Knicks games in an agreement with WEPN-FM. These games conflicted with WEPN-FM's coverage of the NFL's New York Jets when both teams were scheduled to play on Sunday afternoons.

Notable personalities

WBLS is currently the flagship station of Steve Harvey's syndicated morning show. Comedian Earthquake joined the station in the summer of 2013 as its new afternoon drivetime personality. Other current WBLS personalities include Deja Vu, Jeff Foxx, Shalia, Lenny Green, Felix Hernandez, Imhotep Gary Byrd, and Dahved Levy.

During its heyday in the early 1970s to the 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. WBLS was also the longtime home of Hal Jackson, a pioneering Black radio personality and co-founder of former parent company Inner City Broadcasting. Jackson hosted the station's Sunday Classics program weekly until just before his death on May 23, 2012.

Other notable personalities who have appeared on WBLS include: Vy Higgensen, Ken "Spider" Webb, G.Keith Alexander, Chuck Leonard, Wendy Williams, Vaughan Harper, Champagne, Yvonne Mobley, 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 Nielsen Audio's FM station database for WBLS

Coordinates: 40°44′53″N 73°59′10″W / 40.748°N 73.986°W / 40.748; -73.986