WBUF
 | |
| City of license | Buffalo, New York |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Buffalo, New York |
| Branding | 92.9 Jack FM |
| Slogan | Playing What We Want |
| Frequency | 92.9 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | 1947 |
| Format | Adult Hits |
| ERP | 76,000 watts |
| HAAT | 195 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 53699 |
| Callsign meaning | BUFfalo |
| Former callsigns | see below |
| Owner |
Townsquare Media (Townsquare Media of Buffalo, Inc.) |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 929jackfm.com |
WBUF is an FM radio station, located in and licensed to Buffalo, New York. Its studios are located at the Rand Building in Downtown Buffalo, with a transmitter southeast of the city. It is owned by Townsquare Media and broadcasts on 92.9 FM. WBUF is a grandfathered "Superpower" Class B FM radio station (one of at least three, the others being WDCX-FM and WTSS, in the Buffalo market); under current U.S. Federal Communications Commission rules, Class B FM's are not allowed to exceed 50,000 watts erp.[1]
Programming
WBUF is running the Jack FM format, which it acquired in May 2005 while still under the management of CBS Radio. After the station was sold to Regent Broadcasting (now Townsquare Media), 92.9 Jack FM was kept; with a run of ten years and counting, the Jack FM format has remained popular and cost-effective enough to maintain, even as most other markets have dropped the format.
The Jack FM format is by far the longest-running format in the recent history of the station; prior to the adoption of Jack, WBUF had a history of short-lived and rapidly changing formats (usually failed attempts to challenge other more dominant stations in the market), with the station typically changing formats every two years between 1993 and 2005. (In contrast, WLKK, notorious for its frequent format changes in the market, only changes formats once every four to seven years.)
- Pre-1975: The Home of the Blended Sound Beautiful music, as part of The Empire State FM Network including WVOR/Rochester, WDDS/Syracuse, and WFLY/Albany-Troy.
- 1975: Freeform/progressive rock
- 1980: WFXZ "Foxy 93"
- 1982 - 1992: WBUF featured a very entertaining and popular format of Adult Contemporary/Oldies music presented by many popular and well known Western New York on-air personalities including Stan Roberts, Fred Klestine and many others. This was the most popular and successful format for the station, lasting ten (10) years.
- Early 1992: "Mix 92.9", "B93" (Adult Contemporary)
- 1995: WSJZ Smooth Jazz 92.9; This format launched on March 30, 1995, and lasted two years. The final song on "B93" was "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men, while the first song on "WSJZ" was "Smooth Operator" by Sade.
- 1997: WLCE Alice@92.9 (Modern adult contemporary)
- This much-publicized format began on April 4, 1997, and was intended to challenge what was then WMJQ (now WTSS). The format lasted two years.
- 1999: WBUF B92.9 (Rhythmic Oldies/Disco/Classic Soul)
- 2001: Buffalo's Rock Station (Active rock)
- This format was launched on at Nnoon on February 23, 2001. The first song was "Abacab" by Genesis. "92.9 WBUF", as it was called, was intended to challenge WGRF and WEDG. WBUF in this era brought Howard Stern to Buffalo's morning drive. Later on, the station added Opie and Anthony. A combination of two events held by the duo led to their demise. The first was "T'n'A with O&A," a raunchy party hosted by Opie and Anthony in western New York and sponsored by WBUF. However, before any disciplinary action for that incident was taken, the hosts were embroiled in the infamous Sex for Sam scandal in New York City, where two lovers had sex in St. Paul's Cathedral in New York City in exchange for Samuel Adams beer. It was the latter event that ultimately led to their first firing. As Gregg Hughes has stated on their current morning show on competitor WEDG, "We were well on our way to being fired for the 'T'n'A with O&A' party, when we were canceled for 'Sex for Sam'." Instead of reverting the drive time back to rock, they instead replaced O&A with the Don and Mike Show.
- 2004: FM Talk
- This format was a revival of WWKB's ill-fated "hot talk" format of the mid-1990s. The format was intended to challenge WGR and WBEN, as well as partially replace WNSA. With both drive blocks filled with hot talkers, the natural progression was to make the station a full-time talker. With the region's best known hot talk host, J. R. Gach, working in Albany and unavailable, Brother Wease, from sister station WCMF in Rochester, was hired to fill the midday, while Tom Leykis and Loveline were given nighttime slots. The format ended in six months after Wease developed nasal cancer and could not work both his Rochester and Buffalo shifts.
- 2005: Jack FM
- Stern was the only host retained when CBS Radio, then the station's owner, dropped the talk format in Buffalo in favor of Jack, the first format in about 10 years not intended to directly compete with another station in the market. When Stern left terrestrial radio for Sirius Satellite Radio, he was not replaced in Buffalo.
Since May 16, 2005, WBUF has been broadcasting as "92.9 Jack FM" using the popular Jack FM format, playing an eclectic mix of popular music from the past 40 years. At first, 92.9 was one of the only Jack FM stations which didn't use Howard Cogan as the voice of Jack due to its proximity to Toronto's CJAQ-FM, which identified themselves as 92.5 Jack FM. Using Cogan would have most likely caused confusion with listeners due to the fact the two stations are also close by in frequency on the FM dial. WBUF-FM also cannot generally be heard in the Greater Toronto Area because the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) allows CKJN-FM to broadcast which is often overlapping and very unreliable in that vicinity, though this was not the case until CKJN signed on.
Until mid April 2009, WBUF used voice talent Brad Davidorf, best known for his voice work on TBS. WBUF has since reemployed Howard Cogan ("The Coginator") as imaging voice.
Within two months of the change, CJAQ dropped the Jack FM format and went back to the KISS FM format that Jack FM replaced six years earlier.
WBUF began streaming its programming on the Internet in mid-November 2006.
External links
- Official website for 92.9 Jack FM
- Query the FCC's FM station database for WBUF
- Radio-Locator information on WBUF
- Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for WBUF
References
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