Wasn't WJIZ a country station at one time? Was it ever beautiful music? If so, what years for each format and when did it flip to Urban Contemporary? And did it have any other set of call letters? What were the previous calls? I know WKAK-FM 104.5 was beautiful music with the call letters WGPC-FM at one time.
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WJIZ-FM 96.3 Question
- Thread starter jmtillery
- Start date
From my understanding WJIZ was country but play R&B and Gospel at night..in 1969 is when it went full blown R&B. WKAK was Beautiful Music and News and WGPC FM but that blew up in the late 1990's or Early 2000s.
jmtillery said:
WKAK actually began as WWCW on 101.7. It was the owner's initials. Whit Woodall. He inherited the Albany stations, WWCW and WALG(AM) and his brother got the Columbus stations (WDAK/WEIZ) owned by the Woodall family. This was not the same family which had stations in Dawson, Blakely, Cairo, Valdosta and a few other locations.
WWCW was easy listening/soft rock mostly vocals as I remember, not much if any instrumental music which was all WGPC-FM aired while operating on its 150 ft AM tower with 43,000 watts. WWCW with 3000 watts at 330 ft covered as much ground. WJAZ, daytime 5KW on 960, was the country station in Albany til WWCW decided to switch to automated country. The really popular station in Albany back in the 1970s was Top 40 WQDE, 1KW on 1250. Jackson Riley was the star personality and it was a great sounding little station. Teenagers would listen in static 30 miles from Albany but then came along WJAD from Bainbridge on 97.3. They moved off their WMGR(AM) tower with some odd wattage and went 100KW on a 550 ft stick near Climax, GA and with so few FMs on the air then, blanketed Southwest Georgia. Then Billy Woodall sold the Dawson FM, first WDWD-FM (double your profits with the big Double D) later contemporary WHIA (He is Alive). The FM was on the AM tower which was was on the Parrott Hwy northwest of Dawson. When Woodall sold his AM/FM, the new owners moved the Class A FM tower to Sasser and it went AC as 92 WAZE (ways). They did very well but Bainbridge moved closer now on 1000 ft stick and Tifton's WCUP with 100KW on 100.3 moved closer on a 1000 ft stick in Worth County. By the time the owners realized 92 WAZE was in trouble, it was too late to sell. The station had some signal issues on the east side of Albany especially when co channel WDDQ in Adel signed on the air with its popular automated Top 40 format. Ralph Deen operated one of the best sounding small town stations with WBIT 1470 (now the 1690 in Atlanta) which he carried forward to the FM. Q 92 was the number 2 station in Tifton for years in the late 70s early 80s knocking WWGS off its throne as the Top 40 station. WTIF(AM) was number 1 for the long haul especially after Ralph Edwards sold WWGS/WCUP. Ralph did WCUP right. He located it up the street and out of the WWGS building which was a showplace on West Second Street on the way to I-75. I think this was a big factor in the big WCUP not overshadowing WWGS(AM). For many years, Tifton had two great community radio stations with WWGS and WTIF. Both were full service with full time news departments, etc. Over in Albany WJAZ and WALG both had fully staffed local news departments. WALG always had two people in their news department which they called Albany Radio News. I also remember that Top 40 WMJM (1490 since 1940) in Cordele did local news with their country FM, WFAV.
When the Rivers family which owned WJIZ along with WMJM/WFAV, and once WJAZ, got in trouble with the FCC and had to sell, the FCC discovered the huge overlap between WJIZ and WFAV. I remember reading the documents that when WJIZ raised power to 100,000 watts on a taller tower, the application didn't mention the ownership of WFAV. Mr. Rivers was a bitter man over the forced sale of his stations to a minority at 75% of their fair market value. They were bought by Dr. John Robert E. Lee, an African American. Talk about unusual. I believe that Doc Suttles, long time PD and later manager of WJIZ got some ownership interest at the time. Doc was probably the single most popular radio personality in South Georgia with his nighttime black gospel music show on the Georgia Giant, WJIZ. Dr. Lee was paying $5000 a month to rent the dump the Cordele stations had become and it was that lease that pretty much doomed the future of the Cordele stations but I suspect Mr. Rivers felt it was covering the 25% the FCC wouldn't let him take at the sale.
Art, I never had a chance to hear the Cordele stations. Were they automated? My grandfather was friends with James Rivers back in the early 50s when he built WACL in Waycross. He managed the Ware Hotel in Waycross, so they were both interested in that business, as Rivers built a hotel /motel in Albany.
fwillis said:
I don't think MJM or FAV were automated. WMJM was pretty popular in the mid 80's as I recall. Ricky Smarr, Phil Streetman and Lee Wright were the jocks. I spent a little time in the Cordele studios before they burnt down. I recall that SA-40 console that WMJM used, man that thing looked like a tank and that huge BC-1F AM transmitter and FM-5H FM transmitter.
fwillis said:
WMJM was local and live, Top 40. It had the bulk of the local news. Crisp County is a pretty small county in land area so with its half wave tower at 1490, they came pretty close to covering most of the population at night except out on the lake area.
WFAV was automated country throughout the 70s and into the 80s. They used an old Gates cart automation system. WCEH in Hawkinsville also had one. It's amazing how well those things could work despite all the moving parts. When you stood in the room with automation system, it sounded like a machine gun going off with all the relays clicking. WCEH made it sound best but WFAV was better than average small town station. Back in the 70s, that 3KW signal would go a good 50 miles.
Jim Rivers, Jr. owned and operated WACL AM/FM. His father built it but he was the long time operator. I don't think he was associated very closely with the family for most of those years.
WJAZ actually began on 1050 then moved to 960. Bill Blizzard, manager of WMJM, put 1050 on the air in Montezuma, GA WMNZ. Bill's son operates the station now.
As you may know the James Rivers Motel in Albany was built on the road frontage of the big three tower array of WJAZ.
artsutton said:
I don't remember Cordele having an automation like that. Was it stuck back in with the transmitters? I worked at CEH and almost lost a finger in the motor pulley of the Gates 55 cart machine. Oh the carnage when a cart didn't get put all the way back into it's slot and the head deck started moving.
CEH made it sound better because they used a "chatter tape". The first example of voice tracking. Get a couple of Carousels moving along with the 55 loading another cart and it would get quite loud in the hallway.
fwillis said:
Ha! Nope. One of the 55s got stuck for some reason. Instead of giving the motor a push with my shoe, I grabbed the pully with my hand to give it a spin and free it. My left hand pointer finger got under the belt. Still have the scar. Other than an occasional RF burn, that's the only battle scar I have.
B
butchfm
Guest
WJAZ was country through the 80's IN AM STEREO and sister station of WJIZ....don't know if anyone said that yet..Held it's own in the market thanks to JACKSON RILEY...
It was WALB radio. Mayor Gray saw folks gathered around a TV set in a department store trying to watch WSB out of Atlanta and that gave him the idea for channel 10. 1590 was sold in 1960 to the Woodall family out of Columbus and the call letters were changed.
jmtillery said:
No problem. I worked over at 10 for a few years in the early 90's and asked the same things.
What exactly happened to cause the FCC to force the sale of the James Rivers properties?
I've heard that it was irregularities with billing i.e. fraud. I've heard that the son of James Rivers committed suicide afterwards. But I don't think I've ever heard the whole story.
I've heard that it was irregularities with billing i.e. fraud. I've heard that the son of James Rivers committed suicide afterwards. But I don't think I've ever heard the whole story.
Thanks for the Jaxon Riley plugs.
Here is a story written by Carlton Fletcher, for Sunday's (August 1, 2010) Albany Herald.
<http://www.albanyherald.com/home/headlines/99704099.html>
Also does anyone know the call letters for the Country station on 1250 AM that broadcast before the All New Super Q hit the air waves? I remember, it was called the "Radio Ranch."
Here is a story written by Carlton Fletcher, for Sunday's (August 1, 2010) Albany Herald.
<http://www.albanyherald.com/home/headlines/99704099.html>
Also does anyone know the call letters for the Country station on 1250 AM that broadcast before the All New Super Q hit the air waves? I remember, it was called the "Radio Ranch."
jaxonr said:
If I remember it was WLYB owned by Dave Fleagle. Jim Wiggins then bought it and it was 1250 WQDE Albany's Entertainer and then they sold it to Dave Mack.
taylorengineer said:
I heard it was billing issues and there was in incident where they were "less than forthcoming" to an FCC inquiry. The inquiry may have been on the billing issues. I believe Jay Braswell could tell us and he is known to lurk from time to time.
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