Broadcast area | Gloucester, Virginia Gloucester County, Virginia |
---|---|
Frequency | 1420 kHz |
Branding | The True Oldies Channel 1420 and 102.3 |
Programming | |
Format | Oldies |
Affiliations | NBC News Radio AccuWeather The True Oldies Channel Virginia News Network |
Ownership | |
Owner | WXGM, Inc. |
WXGM-FM | |
History | |
First air date | 1957 (as WDDY) |
Former call signs | WRIP (1956, CP) WDDY (1956–1988) |
Technical information [1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Facility ID | 74208 |
Class | D |
Power | 740 watts day 58 watts night |
Transmitter coordinates | 37°24′36.0″N76°32′52.0″W / 37.410000°N 76.547778°W [2] |
Translator(s) | 102.3 W272EJ (Gloucester) |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Webcast | WXGM Webstream |
Website | xtra99 |
WXGM is an oldies-formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Gloucester, Virginia, serving Gloucester and Gloucester County, Virginia. WXGM is owned and operated by WXGM, Inc. [2]
WDDY went on the air on January 20, 1957, becoming the first radio station in the Middle Peninsula. [3] The station was owned by S. L. Goodman, the owner of a publishing firm in Richmond, [4] though the station was almost immediately sold to WDDY, Inc.—owned by station manager Charles E. Springer—upon signing on the air. It broadcast during the daytime only with 1,000 watts. [4] In 1958, Arthur Lazarow, a former announcer at WWJ radio in Detroit, acquired WDDY in 1958 by way of his company Cape Radio; minority investors in Cape included John R. Daniels and Arthur Shimmin. [5] The station's full-service format included 12 hours a week each of African American and country programming in 1967. [6]
Lazarow owned WDDY for 23 years until he sold it in 1981 for $90,000 [7] to a new WDDY, Inc., owned by William Eure and Thomas Robinson of Petersburg, where they owned WSSV AM and WPLZ-FM. [8] Despite not planning many changes at the outset, [8] changes did come to WDDY: that summer, it relaunched with a country format and picked up coverage of Virginia Cavaliers football and the Washington Redskins. [9] Eure and Robinson laid the groundwork for another change in the 80s by announcing their intention in 1984 to apply for an FM frequency. [10] Eure's stake was subsequently purchased by a new corporation, WXGM, Inc., founded by Robinson and Walter Wurfel, an experienced radio executive who was then vice president of communications for the National Association of Broadcasters. [11]
Comprehensive changes came to 1420 AM on September 1, 1988 [12] when the station was relaunched as WXGM with an oldies format. [13] The overhaul also included $40,000 in equipment upgrades. [12] Even more changes came on July 29, 1991, when WXGM-FM 99.1 launched; the FM and AM stations initially simulcast as adult contemporary "Xtra 99.1 FM". [14] That same year, the AM station reduced its daytime power to 740 watts. [15] Its sports coverage gained a regional appeal the next year when the station began what would be a 9-year relationship with the William & Mary Tribe; WXGM ended the deal abruptly in 2001 when it signed a more favorable deal to carry the athletic events of Christopher Newport University, in which CNU paid the station and offered to help sell advertising. [16]
After Wurfel died in 2018 and Robinson died in 2020, ownership of the station passed to their widows, Sara Fitzgerald and Marva Paige Robinson.