WXBT

WXBT is a Sports talk formatted radio station licensed to Columbia, South Carolina and serves the Columbia, South Carolina market. The Clear Channel Communications outlet is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to broadcast at 560 kHz with a transmitter power of 5 kW. The station goes by the name 560 The Team.

History

The station went on the air for the first time on July 10, 1930^[1] when it was launched with the call letters WIS. On January 23, 1930, WIS was the last U.S. broadcast station to be assigned a previously unused call sign with three letters instead of four.^[2] The call letters were derived from the South Carolina nickname "Wonderful Iodine State." Before iodized salt, a high level of iodine in the state's soil gave the state's residents "a low incidence of goiters."^[3] The station was owned by Liberty Life Insurance Company of Columbia, and was one of many radio stations signed on by insurance companies in the South.

On November 14, 1949, a two-story studio on Bull Street was completed to house both the radio station and a planned television station. Construction of WIS-TV was authorized January 29, 1953, and the station signed on November 7, 1953.^[1] The two stations operated under a newly formed Liberty subsidiary, the Broadcasting Company of the South. After acquiring several other stations across the country, it changed its name to Cosmos Broadcasting Corporation, with WIS-AM-TV as the flagship stations.

Talk radio

Cosmos pulled out of radio in 1986, and the new owners adopted the callsign WVOC later that year. WVOC had a talk radio format with syndicated shows, mostly from parent Clear Channel's Premiere networks, including Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Matt Drudge, Adam Bold, and Coast-to-Coast AM. The station also featured Kim Komando and the statewide-syndicated Sports Talk show in evenings.

Since its sale to Clear Channel in 2000, the company actively changed the station's affiliation. In 1986, it dropped its 56-year affiliation with NBC in favor of Westwood One and CBS Radio. However, in 2001 it jumped to ABC Radio after signing a deal for Paul Harvey. In 2005, as part of a corporate-wide change, the station switched to Fox News Radio.

From 1954 until 2002, the station was the flagship for South Carolina Gamecocks football and basketball, and touted itself as the "Home of the Gamecocks." However, on June 27, 2002, Host Communications and the university decided to leave the station in favor of rival Citadel Broadcasting Company stations including WISW (WIS Radio) in Columbia. The decision was made based on the power of the radio stations. The move has now placed Gamecock athletics on Citadel's FM signals which rival the coverages of other Southeastern Conference schools.

WVOC was the flagship radio station of the May 15, 2007, simulcast of the Fox News Republican Presidential Debate.

Sports talk radio

On October 26, 2011, WVOC began simulcasting on WVOC-FM 100.1, who had previously broadcast a hip hop format. However, this was part of a transition to move WVOC to the FM band. On January 3, 2012, WVOC was exclusively available at 100.1 FM. Sports News/Talk programming that was on WCOS (AM) 1400 was moved to AM 560, and the call letters were changed to WXBT, which was formerly on 100.1 FM.

In 2013, WXBT changed to Fox Sports Radio.

References

External links

• 560 The Team
• Radio and Television Towers and Studios in Columbia, SC
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WXBT
• Radio-Locator Information on WXBT
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WXBT

Coordinates: 34°02′00″N 81°08′32″W / 34.03333°N 81.14222°W / 34.03333; -81.14222