WJZZ (FM)

WJZZ is a radio station at 88.1 in Montgomery, New York.

History

Call sign

The call letters WJZZ originally belonged to an FM station in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It started in 1960 by John E. Metts, of Weston, Connecticut, the Vice President of a Bridgeport news station, WICC. Mr. Metts started the venture in partnership with Dave Brubeck as the program director. WJZZ changed later to WEZN (Star 99.9). The Connecticut WJZZ began as an all-jazz station and was one of the pioneers of the "All-Jazz" format. In 1964 it switched to broadcasting the "Top 60" classical performances, compiled in part by Leonard Bernstein. In early 1967, when it began broadcasting in FM stereo, it expanded its lineup to the "Top 100" classical performances while still retaining its original WJZZ call sign.

The WJZZ call letters were eventually transferred to Detroit station WCHD-FM at some point in the early 1970s. WJZZ (105.9 FM) was a popular classic jazz / jazz fusion station in Detroit and became one of the first U.S. stations ever to use the Smooth Jazz format. WJZZ was flipped to an Urban Contemporary format in August 1996, and its call sign changed back to WCHD, then later, to WDMK.

From 1997 to 2001 the calls were assigned to a radio station in Philadelphia at 106.1 FM. Where the call-sign WJZZ was used between 1997 and 2000 is not known. In June 2001, FM 107.5 in Atlanta changed format to Smooth Jazz, and it took the call-sign WJZZ. This station was possibly the last "Smooth Jazz" station in the Eastern US to drop the format in April 2009.

From 2009 to 2014, the calls were assigned to a radio station in North Salem, New York that is now WPUT.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/22/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.