WFEZ (FM)

WFEZ
City Miami
Broadcast area Miami metro area
Branding Easy 93.1
Slogan Continuous Soft and Easy Favorites
Frequency 93.1 MHz (also on HD Radio)
First air date November 1, 1960 (as WKAT-FM)
Format Adult Contemporary
HD2: Dance
ERP 100,000 watts
HAAT 307 meters
Class C0
Facility ID 40408
Transmitter coordinates 25°58′2.00″N 80°12′34.00″W / 25.9672222°N 80.2094444°W / 25.9672222; -80.2094444
Former callsigns WKAT-FM (1960-1971)
WTMI (1971-2001)
WPYM (2002-2005)
WHDR (2005-2010)
Owner Cox Media Group
(Cox Radio, Inc.)
Webcast Listen Live - WFEZ
Listen Live - Party 93.1 HD2
Website easy93.com
party931.com (HD2)

WFEZ (93.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Adult Contemporary format on analog and HD1 and a Dance format on its HD2 channel. Licensed to Miami, Florida, USA, the stations serves Miami-Dade, Broward, and most of Palm Beach Counties. WFEZ is currently owned by Cox Media Group.[1] Its studios are in Hollywood and the transmitter site is in Miami Gardens.

History

Early years, classical era as WTMI & Dance era as Party 93.1 WPYM (1971-2005)

93.1 FM was originally WKAT-FM, which began broadcasting on a full-time basis December 29, 1947.[2]

Later, the station became classical WTMI, which ran from 1971 to noon, New Year's Eve 2001, when it flipped to a Pure Dance format and became WPYM, "Party 93.1, South Florida's Pure Dance Channel." The station earned an "Innovators Award" from Billboard magazine in 2002 and a "Best Dance Radio Station Award" at the 2004 Dancestar USA honors.[3]

This is from the unofficial Party 93.1 Facebook page www.facebook.com/party931HD2

The original Party 93.1 WPYM went on the air, December 31, 2001 playing a mixture of house, dance, trance, remixes of current pop hits mixed with classic Miami freestyle and 90's dance giving the station a unique local flavor.[4] There was nothing else like it at the time on South Florida radio when most other Miami based contemporary stations were either playing urban, rhythmic, or pop music. None played dance. WPYM was revolutionary at the time, as there were no other full power FM dance stations on the air in the USA before Party 93.1. WPYM won several awards for its format during its time on the air.

The reasons for the format change on 93.1 were due to Clear Channel's 94.9 Zeta flipping to Spanish/reggaeton. WPYM was doing well with local advertisers, but 93.1 owner Cox Radio, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, was not satisfied. They were looking for and demanded national big budget advertisers to buy spots on WPYM and that wasn't happening, as WPYM's advertisers were mostly local. So the CEO's at Cox radio ordered Party 93.1 to flip to rock on the weekend of February 12, 2005. By the 14th, they became 93-Rock WHDR since there was no other contemporary rock station in Miami. They did so in the hopes of capitalizing on big budget advertisers buying more spots on the rock format.

Many speculate that Clear Channel, owners of 94.9 Zeta, knew of Cox Radio's situation with advertisers on Party 93.1, and made a strategic move by eliminating rock in hopes that Party 93.1 would flip, and in doing that would eliminate Party 93.1 and, hopefully, also its competition with their rival Y100 which, at the time, did not play dance.

Clear Channel succeeded in their attempts to get WPYM off the air, and by Valentine's Day, there was no more dance music in Miami. WPYM remained as an internet only dance station for less than a year due to public out cry and demand on www.party931.com. However, the enormous costs of maintaining the webstream with thousands of listeners world wide led Cox Radio to shut down the stream and by the end of 2005 Party 93.1 was gone for good.

WHDR "93 ROCK" (2005-2010)

WPYM's demise came on February 14, 2005. With poor ratings, Cox Radio took advantage of the sudden departure of WZTA (when it flipped from Rock to Hispanic Rhythmic as WMGE) by picking up the Active Rock format and taking the call letters WHDR, calling itself "93 Rock". It became a mainstream rock station per Mediabase & Nielsen BDS reports in 2008 after continued failure with the active rock format.

WFEZ "Easy 93.1" (2010-present)

On November 20, 2010 at 6 am, due to underwhelming ratings with their Mainstream Rock Format, WHDR began stunting with Christmas music, with a new format after the holidays. At midnight on December 26, 2010,under the direction of programming director Gary Williams, the station flipped to a Soft AC format and became "Easy 93.1". The first 5 songs to be played were "Easy" by The Commodores, "Something" by The Beatles, "You've Got a Friend" by James Taylor, "My Special Angel" by Bobby Helms, and "Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston. Unlike WHDR and WPYM, the station has become a runaway success, more so then many analysts anticipated. In 2013, WFEZ was a Marconi finalist for AC station of the year.

Current weekday and weekend lineup

   Weekdays

Sign up as a VIP and enter the contest. Listen at 8:30AM, 10:00AM, 12:00PM, and 3:00PM. If you hear your name call to claim and receive your money 

   Saturdays
   Sundays

WFEZ-HD2: Party 93.1 HD2

On March 24, 2008, Cox radio relaunched "Party 93.1" on its HD2 subcarrier. Like its predecessor, this one is also running jockless but the dance music being played this time around is broader, with more music from the Trance & House genre. In March 2011, the station, which had only been available on HD radio devices within the WFEZ South Florida listening area, began streaming on the internet again for the first time since 2005. However, in early August, 2013, Cox radio Miami shut down the website (www.party931.com), the webstream and the official Facebook page for Party due to a new operations manager taking charge and his decision to cut costs at the radio station. Some say they will return sometime in the near future. The only radio station now left playing Dance music in the Miami-Dade area is the new Evolution 93.5 signing in on the air on March 16, 2013 (www.evolution935.com & www.facebook.com/evolution935) Evolution is also on WHYI-HD2 Y-100 (100.7 FM) on your High Definition Radio. **Note that as of January 2015, Party 93.1 is still on the air at 93.1 HD2 but is still not streaming online and as of October 28, 2013, there is a Party fan page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/party93.1hd2).

References

  1. ↑ "WFEZ Facility Record". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.
  2. ↑ "WKAT-FM Begins" (PDF). Broadcasting. January 12, 1948. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  3. ↑ from dancemusic.about.com
  4. ↑ http://formatchange.com/wtmi-becomes-party-93-1/

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, September 12, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.