History
104.7 started in 1948 as WSVS-FM, a complement to its AM sister WSVS. It broadcast just west of Crewe with 14,000 watts of power. In the late 1970s, the station upgraded to a class C1 station with 100,000 watts of power, which gave it an adequate signal that could be received in most of the Central Virginia area. [4] In 1988, they moved to their current tower location to not only send a better signal into Richmond, but also to make it more desirable to sell. It was at that time WSVS-FM became "Power Country 104.7," with all programming separate from WSVS-AM. [5] In 1991, the station was sold to ABS Communications in Richmond and became "104.7 The Bear," with the WKIK call letters. [6] The FM studios were moved out of Crewe and co-located in with ABS's Richmond based headquarters. ABS owned the only other country stations in the Richmond market with "K-95" and "The Bear." "The Bear" was designed to be a classic country format, while "K-95" was to be the new country format.
At 5 p.m. on August 23, 1995, ABS flipped WKIK to modern rock as WBZU, "104.7 The Buzz, Richmond's New Rock Alternative." [7] The success of this station caused Richmond's AAA station WVGO to lose listeners. ABS later purchased WVGO (and its sister station WLEE-FM), changed WVGO's AAA format (and ended the local broadcast of "The Howard Stern Show") and moved "The Buzz" and the WBZU calls to 106.5, while 104.7 became a satellite-fed oldies station as "Oldies 104.7" (the WVGO calls were moved to 104.7) in August 1996. [8] [9] [10]
In February 1998, the station was sold to Fifteen Forty Broadcasting, then owners of adult urban WSOJ (100.3 FM) and local gospel station WREJ-AM, who began a simulcast of WSOJ on both 100.3 and 104.7 beginning February 10, and rebranded as "104.7 Kiss FM", and adopted the WKJS calls three days later. [11] Radio One later purchased both 104.7 and 100.3 from Fifteen Forty in March 1999. [12] In November 2000, the 104.7/100.3 simulcast ended, and Radio One began simulcasting their then-country station, WJRV ("105.7 The River") on 100.3 with new calls WARV. [13] On November 18, 2004, as part of a complex series of moves, Radio One moved the urban gospel-formatted "Praise 99.3" to 104.7, while "Kiss FM" moved to 99.3 and 105.7 (this caused urban oldies WJMO to sign off). The WPZZ calls would be adopted on December 7 of that year. [14]
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