WDHT
Encyclopedia
WDHT, "Hot 102.9", is an Rhythmic Contemporary
radio station
in Urbana, Ohio
serving the Dayton
/Springfield
area that broadcasts on the 102.9 frequency. WDHT is currently owned by Main Line Broadcasting which also owns WING
-AM, WROU-FM
, WCLI-FM (formerly WKSW Kiss Country) and WGTZ
-FM (Fly 92.9). Its transmitter site on Miller Road in Springfield is shared with that of WULM-AM as this was previously the transmitting site of the former WBLY-AM/WAZU-FM. WUFM ("Radio U") based in Columbus also operates a Springfield translator (W254BJ at 98.7) from the same tower site.
) and moved the studios to Dayton. WAZU-FM's studios were originally located in its city of license of Springfield. After then-owner Great Trails Broadcsting dropped the WAZU calls in May, 1995, the WAZU calls moved to 107.1 FM, licensed to Circleville, south of Columbus, Ohio
, in late 1996. They also used the "Big WAZU" nickname and Active Rock format, as well as using exactly the same imaging as 102.9 did in early 1993. That station is now Wink 107.1/WNKK, with a country music format. During this tenure, WAZU competed fiercely with WTUE-FM. The 102.9 frequency changed their calls to WING-FM in 1995 and employed a Classic Rock format from 1995 to 2001.
In 2001 Radio One acquired WING and flipped it to a Rhythmic Contemporary
station suddenly on August 3, 2001. The station retained the WING-FM calls until October 24, 2001, when the calls officially changed to WDHT. Two years later in 2003, Radio One bought out rival urban station WROU
, which was Dayton's last locally owned FM radio station, and was converted to Urban AC-formatted
, a move that allowed WDHT to evolve into a Mainstream Urban
direction, even though its presentation is more along the lines of that of a Churban-formatted station (like WPGC-FM
/Washington, D.C.
).
Under Radio One, WDHT was known for voice-tracking
programming and repetition of songs in their playlists, which tends to favor Churban-friendly Rhythmic hits, but since the change in ownership it has taken on a more live and local presentation. Also, in the wake of sister station WGTZ
's flip to Adult Hits
, it has also taken on a more broader Rhythmic direction than ever, which might be due to the competition it has with rival Top 40 WDKF
, whose direction leaned Rhythmic. The station also airs the Russ Parr
morning show. By September 2009 WDHT was officially moved from the R&B/Hip-Hop panel to the Rhythmic Airplay Panel
by Nielsen BDS
as it began to incorporate more Rhythmic Pop tracks into its playlist. The move to Rhythmic might have been spurred by WDKF's decision to shift away from a local presentation to adopting Clear Channel's "Premium Blend" presentation. That approach, of course, would result in WDKF being dropped from both Mediabase and BDS Top 40 reporting panels in 2009.
On May 17, 2007 Philadelphia-based Main Line Broadcasting announced the acquisition of Radio One's stations in the Dayton and Louisville market areas. Main Line took over the Dayton stations on September 14, 2007.
In 2006, Radio One announced that sister station WKSW "Kiss Country" would relocate its frequency from 101.7 to 101.5 with the new callsign WCLI-FM and its city of licence from Urbana to Enon just outside of Springfield. The move was later appoved by the FCC. As part of a trade off, WDHT switched its city of license from Springfield to Urbana in 2010 but the station's transmitter remained in Springfield after the WKSW move to 101.5 officially took place. This move was planned before Radio One sold its Dayton area cluster to Main Line.
Rhythmic Contemporary
Rhythmic contemporary, also known as rhythmic top 40, rhythmic contemporary hit radio or rhythmic crossover, is a music radio format that includes a mix of EDM, upbeat rhythmic pop, hip-hop and R&B hits. Rhythmic contemporary rarely uses rock music or country music in its airplay, but it may...
radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
in Urbana, Ohio
Urbana, Ohio
Urbana is a city in and the county seat of Champaign County, Ohio, United States, west of Columbus. Urbana was laid out in 1805, and for a time in 1812 was the headquarters of the Northwestern army. Urbana was named after the town of Urbanna, Virginia. It is the burial-place of the Indian fighter...
serving the Dayton
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
/Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg...
area that broadcasts on the 102.9 frequency. WDHT is currently owned by Main Line Broadcasting which also owns WING
WING
WING "ESPN 1410" is a commercial AM radio station in Dayton, Ohio operating with 5,000 watts at 1410 kHz with studios, offices and transmitter located on David Road in Kettering. It is the first full-time commercial radio station in Dayton...
-AM, WROU-FM
WROU-FM
WROU-FM is an Urban Adult Contemporary radio station at 92.1 FM licensed in West Carrollton, Ohio serving the Dayton area and owned and operated by Main Line broadcasting.-History:...
, WCLI-FM (formerly WKSW Kiss Country) and WGTZ
WGTZ
WGTZ "Fly 92.9" is a commercial FM station licensed in Eaton, Ohio at 92.9 MHz serving the Dayton and Springfield market area with an Adult Hits format. The previous CHR/Pop format commenced Sunday, March 15, 1984 at Noon when Dayton-based Great Trails Broadcasting owned the station at the time...
-FM (Fly 92.9). Its transmitter site on Miller Road in Springfield is shared with that of WULM-AM as this was previously the transmitting site of the former WBLY-AM/WAZU-FM. WUFM ("Radio U") based in Columbus also operates a Springfield translator (W254BJ at 98.7) from the same tower site.
History
Prior to becoming WDHT, the 102.9 frequency was originally licensed to Springfield as WBLY-FM from 1958 to 1979, simulcasting middle of the road WBLY-AM before the FM switch to rock. In the late 70s they were known as WAZU, "FM-103 The Zoo...from A to Z to U." and played album oriented rock and occasionally some adult contemporary. In the mid to late-80s they simply billed themselves as 103 WAZU, and later as 102.9 WAZU. On January 15, 1989, the station briefly went dark, and when they returned to the airwaves later that day they had switched directions to album oriented rock and began billing themselves as "The Big WAZU", which lasted until March 19, 1993, by which time the station had evolved into a harder-edged Active Rock, when the station flipped formats to Classic Rock as "Classic Rock 102.9 WAZU". Also to note in between the flip from Active Rock to Classic Rock, WAZU briefly stunted as "102.9 WZEP-All Led Zeppelin, All The Time". In 1992, WAZU was sold to Osborn Communications by "Smilin' Bob" Yountz's Champion City Broadcasting, owners of the former WBLY-AM (now WULM-AMWULM-AM
WULM "Radio Maria" 1600-AM is an American non-commercial AM radio station licensed in Springfield, Ohio serving the Springfield and Dayton area with Catholic insprational programming . It operates at 1600 kHz with a power output of 1,000 watts daytime and with a reduced power of 34 watts...
) and moved the studios to Dayton. WAZU-FM's studios were originally located in its city of license of Springfield. After then-owner Great Trails Broadcsting dropped the WAZU calls in May, 1995, the WAZU calls moved to 107.1 FM, licensed to Circleville, south of Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, in late 1996. They also used the "Big WAZU" nickname and Active Rock format, as well as using exactly the same imaging as 102.9 did in early 1993. That station is now Wink 107.1/WNKK, with a country music format. During this tenure, WAZU competed fiercely with WTUE-FM. The 102.9 frequency changed their calls to WING-FM in 1995 and employed a Classic Rock format from 1995 to 2001.
In 2001 Radio One acquired WING and flipped it to a Rhythmic Contemporary
Rhythmic Contemporary
Rhythmic contemporary, also known as rhythmic top 40, rhythmic contemporary hit radio or rhythmic crossover, is a music radio format that includes a mix of EDM, upbeat rhythmic pop, hip-hop and R&B hits. Rhythmic contemporary rarely uses rock music or country music in its airplay, but it may...
station suddenly on August 3, 2001. The station retained the WING-FM calls until October 24, 2001, when the calls officially changed to WDHT. Two years later in 2003, Radio One bought out rival urban station WROU
WROU-FM
WROU-FM is an Urban Adult Contemporary radio station at 92.1 FM licensed in West Carrollton, Ohio serving the Dayton area and owned and operated by Main Line broadcasting.-History:...
, which was Dayton's last locally owned FM radio station, and was converted to Urban AC-formatted
Urban Adult Contemporary
Urban adult contemporary is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have rap music on their playlists. The format was designed by Barry Mayo when he, Lee S. Simonson and Bill Pearson organized Broadcast...
, a move that allowed WDHT to evolve into a Mainstream Urban
Mainstream Urban
Mainstream Urban is a term used to describe a radio format similar to an Urban Contemporary format. The format differentiates itself due to two factors: playlist composition and target demographic...
direction, even though its presentation is more along the lines of that of a Churban-formatted station (like WPGC-FM
WPGC-FM
WPGC-FM is one of the most popular among Washington, D.C.'s urban format radio station's, and has been ranked as one of its top rated radio stations for over 20 years, according to the Arbitron ratings. It has a city of license of Morningside at the 95.5 MHz frequency on the FM dial...
/Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
).
Under Radio One, WDHT was known for voice-tracking
Voice-tracking
Voice-tracking, also called cyber jocking and referred to sometimes colloquially as a robojock, is a technique employed by some radio stations in radio broadcasting to produce the illusion of a live disc jockey or announcer sitting in the radio studios of the station when one is not actually...
programming and repetition of songs in their playlists, which tends to favor Churban-friendly Rhythmic hits, but since the change in ownership it has taken on a more live and local presentation. Also, in the wake of sister station WGTZ
WGTZ
WGTZ "Fly 92.9" is a commercial FM station licensed in Eaton, Ohio at 92.9 MHz serving the Dayton and Springfield market area with an Adult Hits format. The previous CHR/Pop format commenced Sunday, March 15, 1984 at Noon when Dayton-based Great Trails Broadcasting owned the station at the time...
's flip to Adult Hits
Adult hits
Adult hits is a radio format, popular in the early 2000s, that does not adhere to a specific music genre, but instead draws from a wider playlist...
, it has also taken on a more broader Rhythmic direction than ever, which might be due to the competition it has with rival Top 40 WDKF
WDKF
WDKF, is a Top 40 Mainstream station serving the Dayton area. WDKF, whose community of license is Kettering, Ohio, broadcasts on 99.9 MHz with an ERP of 28,000 watts, and is owned by Clear Channel Communications.-History:...
, whose direction leaned Rhythmic. The station also airs the Russ Parr
Russ Parr
Russ Parr is an American radio and television personality.-Career:Parr began as a Production Services Director at ABC TV....
morning show. By September 2009 WDHT was officially moved from the R&B/Hip-Hop panel to the Rhythmic Airplay Panel
Rhythmic Airplay Chart
The Rhythmic Airplay Chart is an airplay chart that is featured weekly in Billboard Magazine. The chart tracks and measures the airplay of songs played on Rhythmic stations, whose playlist includes mostly hit-driven R&B/Hip-Hop, Rhythmic pop, and some Dance tracks...
by Nielsen BDS
Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems
Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, better known as BDS, is a service that tracks monitored radio, television and internet airplay of songs based on the number of spins and detections...
as it began to incorporate more Rhythmic Pop tracks into its playlist. The move to Rhythmic might have been spurred by WDKF's decision to shift away from a local presentation to adopting Clear Channel's "Premium Blend" presentation. That approach, of course, would result in WDKF being dropped from both Mediabase and BDS Top 40 reporting panels in 2009.
On May 17, 2007 Philadelphia-based Main Line Broadcasting announced the acquisition of Radio One's stations in the Dayton and Louisville market areas. Main Line took over the Dayton stations on September 14, 2007.
In 2006, Radio One announced that sister station WKSW "Kiss Country" would relocate its frequency from 101.7 to 101.5 with the new callsign WCLI-FM and its city of licence from Urbana to Enon just outside of Springfield. The move was later appoved by the FCC. As part of a trade off, WDHT switched its city of license from Springfield to Urbana in 2010 but the station's transmitter remained in Springfield after the WKSW move to 101.5 officially took place. This move was planned before Radio One sold its Dayton area cluster to Main Line.
Current On-Air Lineup
- 6 AM-10 AM-The Russ Parr Morning Show(Syndicated)
- 10 AM-3 PM-No on-air personality
- 3 PM-7 PM-Scott Sharp(Also Program Director of WDHT)
- 7 PM-Midnight-"The Party Man"