History
The call letters WFBC were taken from a station in Knoxville, Tennessee that had gone off the air in the early 1930s and reassigned to Greenville. WFBC signed on the air May 3, 1933. Former WFBC program director Norvin Duncan said that the WFBC call letters stood for "First Baptist Church". Three other stations in the Greenville market used the WFBC call sign: The original AM station owned by the Peace family, owners of the Greenville News and Greenville Piedmont, and broadcasting on 1330 kHz, now WYRD; television channel 4, signed on by the family in 1953, which used the calls until 1983 (when it became WYFF); and TV channel 40 in Anderson, which changed its calls to WFBC-TV from WAXA after an ownership change. The WFBC-TV call sign was used on channel 40 until 1999; it is now WMYA-TV.
WFBC-FM signed on May 12, 1947 as a sister station to WFBC. The programming was 90% simulcast for the first 8 to 10 years featuring block local programming and NBC Network programs. The early management team included : Bevo Whitmire, Ken Beechboard, R. A. Jolly, Wilson Wearn and Bruce Buchanan.
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, WFBC-FM featured the Esso Reporter each 30 minutes during the morning hours with Norvin Duncan as host. Other early morning shows; Housekeeping-a-hobby with Alice Wyman, Kitchen Kapers with Claude Freeman and The "Aristocratic Pigs" with Baby Ray.
WFBC-FM's later morning shows featured "Shelley's Shenanigans" with Bob Shelley (1953–1956), Bob Poole and "Pooles Party Line" (1957–1961). In 1962, Monty Dupuy became the long running host of the simulcast morning show which was one of the most popular shows in Greenville Radio History garnering more than 50% of the audience for more than 15 years. Dupuy was the morning host on WFBC-FM from 1962 to 1977. In 1965, WFBC-FM began independent programming of "light music" and "Music with McMasters" only simulcasting during the Dupuy morning show and special events. WFBC-FM started programming Drake Chenaults (Hit Parade) format in early 1971 becoming one of the most popular radio stations in the upstate.
Past on-air staff during the 1960s and 1970s on WFBC-FM include: Norvin Duncan, Johnny Wright, Bob Poole, Bob Shelley, Monty Dupuy, Stowe Hoyle, Ben Greer, Bill Kregar, Verner Tate, Alice Wyman, Claude Freeman, Wilfred Walker, Billy Powell, Lee Kanipe, Max Mace, Jeff Fields, Ray Clune, Johnny Batson, Andy Scott, Ken Rogers, Dan Kelly, Jerry Haynes, Jim Burnside, Eston Johnson, Scott Shannon, Bill Love, Dale Gilbert, Dave Partridge, Jim Phillips, Rick Driver and Patty Snow.
WFBC-FM was an adult contemporary station during the 1970s and 1980s, and an oldies station in the early 1990s, with the name "Oldies B 93.7" and then just "Oldies 93.7". Announcers in that time frame included; Ken Rogers, Steve Chris, Lee Alexander, Russ Cassell, Robin Keith ("Rockin Robin"), Chris Scott, Heidi Aiken, Eric Rogers, Lisa Rollins, Jan Meng, Little Anthony Keller, Dan Stevens, "Spanky" Jim Miller, Lee Nolan, "Brother Bill" Prather, Joe Fletcher, Lou Simon and many more. As an Oldies outlet, WFBC featured the popular weeknight Oldies Request show "Into The Night" with Jan Ming. They also played Dick Clark, Mike Harvey and Dick Bartley National Oldies Shows on the weekends. The station also produced and networked several award-winning Carolina Beach Music shows with Ken Rogers and Leighton Grantham. The format was 1950s-early 1970s Rock and Roll Oldies and was successful for many years. During this period, the station was known for doing live remotes and broadcast Memorial Day Weekends live from "Freedom Weekend Aloft". WYFF-TV Weatherman Dale Gilbert did Mid-Mornings on WFBC-FM during part of this period as well as doing the Morning Weather Broadcasts on "Your Friend" 4. WFBC/(WYFF-TV 4) and WFBC AM/FM shared the same building from 1955 until 1977, when a new radio facility was built adjacent to the TV station on Rutherford Street. The entire facility was dubbed "Broadcast Place."
In April 1994, WFBC-AM-FM was sold, and in 1995, after stunting with a disc jockey reading the local phone book, [2] WFBC-FM switched to its current CHR format. This outraged many local Oldies listeners, and soon, 103.3 and 103.9 (WOLT and WOLI-FM) picked up the Oldies format.
In 1997, Tias Schuster was the station's mascot Buzzy Bee, later becoming afternoon DJ and music director. Schuster returned to the station as program director in 2012. [3]
WFBC added On Air With Ryan Seacrest in November 2008. [4] The station's main competition has been Rhythmic CHR WHZT, owned by Summit Media, and Hot AC WMYI, owned by Clear Channel Communications, which later changed to adult hits.
HD channels
HD2 (The Block)
W242BX, formerly a translator for WHRZ-LP, launched with country music as "Kicks 96.3" on October 14, 2015, but this was revealed to be a stunt. On October 16, the station switched to variety hits as "Simon", with an official announcement of the final format to follow. This announcement on October 21 at Noon appeared to confirm Simon was the final format, but at 5 PM, the station switched to Mainstream urban, using the name "96.3 the Block" and playing 10,000 songs in a row (the first song was "Hotline Bling" by Drake). The station added The Steve Harvey Morning Show in mornings on November 2. [5] [6] On May 5, 2016, The Block began simulcasting on 104.5 W283CG Inman and rebranded as "96.3/104.5 The Block". 104.5 had completed its move from Tryon and operates from just outside Spartanburg. [7] On March 21, 2019, a third signal was added, in Anderson, on 107.7 W299BK, giving the station almost full coverage of the entire market across the three signals. [8] The stations are now known as "The Block", or "The Block (96.3 Greenville, 104.5 Spartanburg, 107.7 Anderson)."
HD3 (The Fan Upstate)
WFBC-HD3 relays programming originated from WORD 950 and WYRD (AM) 1330, which carries CBS Sports Radio. In addition to the AM signals, CBS Sports Radio programming is heard on two FM translators across the market via WFBC-HD3: W246BU in Spartanburg, which moved from 97.1 FM in Spartanburg to 97.7 on August 19, 2016; [9] as of February 8, 2017, the translator is licensed to serve Greenville, South Carolina, and the call sign was changed to W249DL. In Spartanburg, a translator, W246CV signed on the 97.1 frequency early in 2017, providing FM coverage across the Spartanburg portion of the market. A third translator, W290BW 105.9, once served the eastern part of the Greenville area. [10]
HD4
WFBC-HD4 previously relayed the signal of 106.3 WSPA-FM, and prior to that, the news/talk format of 106.3 WYRD-FM. WYRD's talk format moved to 98.9 on March 28, 2023, and was switched with the adult contemporary format. Since the 106.3 signal did not reach Asheville, this HD channel provided some over-the-air coverage to Asheville, along with Audacy's audio stream elsewhere within the US. [11] When WSPA-FM was sold and flipped to regional mexican on April 1, 2024, the HD4 channel was turned off. But it soon came back on airing the adult contemporary format again.
