WOKV

WOKV (690 AM) and WOKV-FM (104.5 FM) are a pair of American radio stations in the Jacksonville, Florida, media market. WOKV & WOKV-FM are owned by Cox Radio of Atlanta, Georgia, and offer a conservative talk radio format. The station's studios are located in Jacksonville's Southside district. The AM daytime transmitter is in Orange Park while its nighttime transmitter is in Baldwin, and the FM transmitter is in Jacksonvilleʼs Southside neighborhood. After its locally produced morning program, "Jacksonville's Morning News", WOKV airs nationally syndicated conservative talk shows and locally anchored news, traffic and weather reports.

WOKV has one of the strongest daytime AM signals in the Southeast.^[1] In addition to the Jacksonville metropolitan area, its non-directional 50,000 Watt daytime signal covers the Atlantic coast from Melbourne, Florida all the way to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, an area that includes Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. At night, the station reduces power to 25,000 watts and uses a directional transmitter to protect clear channel Class-A station CKGM in Montreal as well as older, high power stations on the 690 frequency, including XEWW-AM in Baja California, Mexico and CBU in Vancouver, Canada.

WOKV (AM) History

WOKV first began broadcasting on October 23, 1958,^[2] originally with 50,000 watts by day and 10,000 at night. From the late 1950s to the early 1980s, 690 kHz was the original home to Top 40 station WAPE ("The Big Ape"). In the early 1980s, the station went country; by the mid '80s, it was religious; and in 1986, WAPE migrated to 95.1 MHz (formerly urban WJAX-FM) and restarted its Top 40 format as WAPE-FM.

In 2006, 690 AM upgraded its nighttime signal to 25,000 watts after sunset, with a broader pattern, and also added an FM simulcast on 106.5 FM, formerly WBGB, now WEZI. This made WOKV one of the first news/talk radio stations in the country to simulcast on both AM and FM. The AM station was the flagship for the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars from the team's inception in 1995 through 2013.

WOKV-FM history

The current WOKV-FM began operation in October 1970. On March 10, 1980 it became "The New Rock 105 FM, Where Rock Lives!" with an AOR format. One of the early competing stations was Top 40 WIVY-FM at 102.9 (now sister WXXJ), which was known as "Y-103 FM". One of the slogans on WFYV was "Y 103 when you can Rock 105?". Over the years, the station gradually shifted towards classic rock.

Following a format change at rival rock station 107.3 WPLA, WFYV shifted from a classic to mainstream rock format under the name "Rock 104.5, Jacksonville's Best Rock!".

On April 10, 2013, Cox Media announced that "Rock 104.5" was going to "retire" effective April 28. On that day, at 10:07 PM, the station signed off with a live version of "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which was followed by a minute of silence. After that, the station began stunting with a 5-minute loop of teasers of potential formats (Hot Talk as "Raw Talk, 104.5 The Bone", Soft AC as "Easy 104.5", Country as "104.5 Brad-FM", Urban as "Power 104.5" and Spanish music as "Caliente 104.5") and redirecting listeners to sister alternative rock station WXXJ. The stunting lasted until midnight on May 1, 2013, when WFYV-FM changed to a simulcast of news/talk-formatted WOKV.^[3] On May 16, 2013, WFYV-FM changed its call letters to WOKV-FM.

On-air hosts

Past on-air hosts include Chris & JD; Greg & Dave; John Brownlee; Rad Messick; Charlie Logan; Jim Huste; Rick Tracy; Michele Michaels; Bobby Ellerbee; John Brownlee; Charlie Waters; Tim Kelly; Coco Daddy; Bradley Bacon; Joanie Maverick; Lex and Terry; Bubba The Love Sponge; Patti Haze; Mark, Genny and Dahmer; Stacey Thorp; Mike "The Arf" Areford ; Don Davis; Jim Quinn; Jamie Brooks; John Carey "Mr. Brooks" Brooks; Chris "Annie" Squire; Shaun Bailey; Scott Gentle, Gregg Stepp, The Greaseman;

On-air incidents

In October 2008, radio host Gregg Stepp made everyone think he quit live on-the-air. The plan was to give listeners the idea that station management were planning on firing him but he was "quitting" before they had the chance.

Now I find out that there's another deal in the works with somebody else and they're only minutes away from handing me my walking papers? Well, here's your 15 second notice: Kiss my ass, Cox Radio Jacksonville, and especially you, Bill Hendrich and David Israel! You two empty suits will be lucky if this is the only time this happens to you, and it's gonna be a bright day in Jacksonville when your desks are emptied and radio is free of you. Now, this shows you how much they're paying attention, by the way, because they should have been in here by now, and if they were really listening to the radio stations they'd knew what was going on. So, thanks for nothing, rot in hell Cox Radio. I am gone!

— Stepp's final words

This was followed by 11 seconds of dead air, and then music played.^[4]

It was later revealed that Stepp had already been given his notice and had taken a new Program Director job in Bakersfield, California. Management asked him to create a bit that would bring some attention to the station before announcing the return of "The Greaseman" to the Jacksonville airwaves a couple weeks later.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WOKV
• Radio-Locator Information on WOKV
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WOKV
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WOKV
• Radio-Locator information on WOKV
• Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for WOKV