WVMV
Encyclopedia
WDZH is a radio station serving the Metropolitan Detroit area in Southeastern Michigan
. WDZH broadcasts a CHR
format at 98.7 MHz. The station's transmitter is located near Livernois and West Davison in the City of Detroit. WDZH broadcasts with an Effective Radiated Power
of 50,000 watts from an antenna 463 feet in height.
programming for nearly two decades. On July 16, 1980, WBFG was sold and soon changed its calls to WLLZ.
On August 11, 1980, at 5:07 p.m., WLLZ debuted a new album oriented rock format; the first song played on the new "Detroit's Wheels" was "Let It Rock" by Bob Seger
. (The WLLZ calls were also rumored to stand for "We Love Led Zeppelin
" or "Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin".) The new WLLZ became an instant hit. Competing AOR station WWWW
had already switched to country music
, and WABX
99.5 would change to a CHR
-oriented format in 1982, leaving WLLZ and 101 WRIF
to go head-to-head in the AOR format for the rest of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, with WLLZ occasionally beating heritage rocker WRIF in the 12+ ratings. In an Ann Arbor News article in 1987, Michael Solon, the station's general manager at the time of the rock format's launch, credited WLLZ's success to the perception that the station featured less chatter and took a more mass-appeal, hit-oriented approach to its music than competing stations: "It was a wonderful time, making such a splash with an all-new station. I was no genius. It just figured that if the other stations were awfully chatty and going four songs deep on albums, we would do well by playing album-music hits."
In 1988, WLLZ also introduced the nation's first weekly sports talk show on an FM rock and roll station, "The Sunday Sports Albom" hosted by Mitch Albom
.
in the mid-1990s (which put the station in competition with 89x and The Planet 96.3
for the alternative audience) failed to reverse the station's dropping ratings, and on December 20, 1995, WLLZ became a smooth jazz station, with the first song being "Smooth Operator
" by Sade
. The WVMV calls were adopted in February 1996.
For a while, WVMV and WJZZ
were competitors in the Smooth Jazz format. When 105.9 was flipped to an urban format in August 1996, the WJZZ callsign was also discontinued, and eventually used for a Smooth Jazz station in Atlanta, Georgia
— which, like WVMV, is the second (if one discounts Detroit's previous new age
-format stations, WVAE
92.3 and WXCD
102.7) such formatted station to serve its city (WJZF
was the first). The WJZZ call sign was assigned to the Atlanta station (now WAMJ) from 2001 to 2009.
" by Sade
, after which the station played an audio montage of jingles and airchecks of WLLZ (98.7's previous format from 1980–1995) followed by "Welcome To The Jungle
" by Guns N' Roses
. This turned out to be a stunt, however. 98.7 then played audio of Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift during the VMA's, followed by Beyoncé
's "Sweet Dreams", and became a Top 40 station. During the first weekend, the station was commercial free and was calling itself "98-7 Takeover" and asking people to register online and guess what the name of the new station was going to be. The winner of the contest would be awarded $1,000. On October 5, 2009 at 8am, the station became "98-7 Amp Radio", modeled like its sister station 97-1 Amp Radio in Los Angeles
, and 92-3 Now in New York City
. It is also the second Amp Radio station owned by the company, and the only Amp Radio station in the eastern United States. Unlike 92-3 Now in New York City, and 97.1 Amp Radio in Los Angeles, 98-7 AMP Radio did not start with 10,000 songs commercial free. It now offers commercial-free Mondays. The station adopted the WDZH call sign on May 3, 2010. As of April 11, 2011, Amp Radio discontinued commercial-free Mondays.
The new AMP Radio format features a very tight rotation of mainly current hits, similar to Mike Joseph's Hot Hits
formatted stations of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The Smooth Jazz format is available on the station's HD2 subcarrier, and online, with one live airshift hosted by Madisun Leigh on weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm. Alexander Zonjic
hosts Alexander Zonjic from A to Z on Fridays and Sundays from 7 pm to 8 pm.
Also, this is CBS Radio's second station flipping from smooth jazz
to top 40 (KKHH in Houston, Texas
is the other). Due to this latest flip, CBS Radio has one remaining Smooth Jazz station, KTWV
"94.7 The Wave" in Los Angeles, but it now leans more toward Smooth AC.
On October 24, 2011, WDZH took advantage of WHTD
's recent format move from 102.7 to WGPR's 107.5 frequency by registering a domain for www.praise1027.com (due to WHTD flipping to Gospel Music). When the site opens, the message reads "God Wants You To Amp," but it was a decoy to lure listeners to WDZH.
WDZH currently ranked at #19 (6+) in the Detroit market according to the Holiday 2010 PPM Ratings release.
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. WDZH broadcasts a CHR
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...
format at 98.7 MHz. The station's transmitter is located near Livernois and West Davison in the City of Detroit. WDZH broadcasts with an Effective Radiated Power
Effective radiated power
In radio telecommunications, effective radiated power or equivalent radiated power is a standardized theoretical measurement of radio frequency energy using the SI unit watts, and is determined by subtracting system losses and adding system gains...
of 50,000 watts from an antenna 463 feet in height.
WBFG/WLLZ-Detroit's Wheels
The station signed on the air in 1961 as WBFG ("We Broadcast For God"). The station broadcast religiousChristian radio
Christian radio is a category of radio formats that focus on transmitting programming with a Christian message. In the United States, where it is more established, many such broadcasters play popular music of Christian influence, though many programs have talk or news programming covering...
programming for nearly two decades. On July 16, 1980, WBFG was sold and soon changed its calls to WLLZ.
On August 11, 1980, at 5:07 p.m., WLLZ debuted a new album oriented rock format; the first song played on the new "Detroit's Wheels" was "Let It Rock" by Bob Seger
Bob Seger
Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
. (The WLLZ calls were also rumored to stand for "We Love Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
" or "Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin".) The new WLLZ became an instant hit. Competing AOR station WWWW
WDTW-FM
WDTW-FM is a classic rock formatted radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications. WDTW-FM is licensed for HD Radio operations; its secondary channel carries Clear Channel's "Pride Radio" format, which features music geared toward the LGBT audience...
had already switched to country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, and WABX
WYCD
WYCD is a radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is the only country music station in the Detroit area. WYCD's offices and studios are located on Woodward Heights . near Interstate 75 in Ferndale, Michigan...
99.5 would change to a CHR
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...
-oriented format in 1982, leaving WLLZ and 101 WRIF
WRIF
WRIF — branded 101 WRIF: The RIFF — is a commercial active rock radio station licensed by the FCC to operate in Detroit, Michigan serving surrounding Metro Detroit. The station is currently owned by Greater Boston Radio, Inc. WRIF is a grandfathered Class B station with a signal equivalent to...
to go head-to-head in the AOR format for the rest of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, with WLLZ occasionally beating heritage rocker WRIF in the 12+ ratings. In an Ann Arbor News article in 1987, Michael Solon, the station's general manager at the time of the rock format's launch, credited WLLZ's success to the perception that the station featured less chatter and took a more mass-appeal, hit-oriented approach to its music than competing stations: "It was a wonderful time, making such a splash with an all-new station. I was no genius. It just figured that if the other stations were awfully chatty and going four songs deep on albums, we would do well by playing album-music hits."
In 1988, WLLZ also introduced the nation's first weekly sports talk show on an FM rock and roll station, "The Sunday Sports Albom" hosted by Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom
Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom is an American best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, dramatist, radio and television broadcaster and musician. His books have sold over 30 million copies worldwide...
.
WVMV-Smooth Jazz V98.7
WLLZ saw its fortunes slip in the early 1990s with the emergence of "alternative" rock groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam who drove many of the 1980s "hair bands" off the charts. A format tweak from AOR to modern rockModern rock
Modern rock is a rock format commonly found on commercial radio; the format consists primarily of the alternative rock genre...
in the mid-1990s (which put the station in competition with 89x and The Planet 96.3
WDVD
WDVD is a hot adult contemporary radio station in Detroit, Michigan, broadcasting at 96.3 MHz on the FM dial. WDVD's studios and offices are located in the Fisher Building near downtown Detroit. WDVD's transmitter is located in Oakland County in Royal Oak Township at 8 Mile Road and Wyoming Avenue...
for the alternative audience) failed to reverse the station's dropping ratings, and on December 20, 1995, WLLZ became a smooth jazz station, with the first song being "Smooth Operator
Smooth Operator
"Smooth Operator" is a song by the English group Sade, released as the fourth and final single from their debut album Diamond Life . It was released as a 7" single with "Spirit" as its B-side, and as a 12" maxi single with "Smooth Operator" and "Red Eye" on side A and "Spirit" on side B...
" by Sade
Sade Adu
Helen Folasade Adu OBE , is a British singer-songwriter, composer, and record producer. She first achieved success in the 1980s as the frontwoman and lead vocalist of the Brit and Grammy Award winning English group Sade.-Biography:Sade was born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria...
. The WVMV calls were adopted in February 1996.
WDMK
WDMK is an FM radio station in Detroit, Michigan broadcasting at 105.9 mHz, owned by Radio One. The station is positioned as 105-9 Kiss, Detroit's Best R&B with a current-based Urban Adult Contemporary format playing mostly current R&B with some Neo Soul and a little old school mixed in...
were competitors in the Smooth Jazz format. When 105.9 was flipped to an urban format in August 1996, the WJZZ callsign was also discontinued, and eventually used for a Smooth Jazz station in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
— which, like WVMV, is the second (if one discounts Detroit's previous new age
New Age music
New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
-format stations, WVAE
WMXD
WMXD is a Clear Channel-owned Urban AC FM radio station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, that broadcasts on the frequency of 92.3 MHz. WMXD, which bills itself as "Today's R&B and the Best Old School Jamz," is consistently a very highly rated station in Detroit's Arbitron ratings reports,...
92.3 and WXCD
WHTD
WPZR is an urban gospel formatted radio station licensed to Mount Clemens, Michigan, and serving the Detroit metropolitan area...
102.7) such formatted station to serve its city (WJZF
WALR-FM
WALR-FM is an urban adult contemporary-formatted radio station owned by Cox Media Group. WALR-FM is licensed to Greenville and broadcasts on a class C0 100-kilowatt signal on the 104.1 megahertz frequency...
was the first). The WJZZ call sign was assigned to the Atlanta station (now WAMJ) from 2001 to 2009.
WDZH-98.7 Amp Radio
At 5 pm on October 2, 2009, after almost fourteen years as a smooth jazz station, V98.7 ended with the song "Smooth OperatorSmooth Operator
"Smooth Operator" is a song by the English group Sade, released as the fourth and final single from their debut album Diamond Life . It was released as a 7" single with "Spirit" as its B-side, and as a 12" maxi single with "Smooth Operator" and "Red Eye" on side A and "Spirit" on side B...
" by Sade
Sade Adu
Helen Folasade Adu OBE , is a British singer-songwriter, composer, and record producer. She first achieved success in the 1980s as the frontwoman and lead vocalist of the Brit and Grammy Award winning English group Sade.-Biography:Sade was born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria...
, after which the station played an audio montage of jingles and airchecks of WLLZ (98.7's previous format from 1980–1995) followed by "Welcome To The Jungle
Welcome to the Jungle
"Welcome to the Jungle" is a song by American rock band Guns N' Roses, featured on its 1987 debut studio album, Appetite for Destruction. It was released as the band's second single on October 3, 1987, and reached number #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number #24 on the UK Singles Chart...
" by Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
. This turned out to be a stunt, however. 98.7 then played audio of Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift during the VMA's, followed by Beyoncé
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
's "Sweet Dreams", and became a Top 40 station. During the first weekend, the station was commercial free and was calling itself "98-7 Takeover" and asking people to register online and guess what the name of the new station was going to be. The winner of the contest would be awarded $1,000. On October 5, 2009 at 8am, the station became "98-7 Amp Radio", modeled like its sister station 97-1 Amp Radio in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and 92-3 Now in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It is also the second Amp Radio station owned by the company, and the only Amp Radio station in the eastern United States. Unlike 92-3 Now in New York City, and 97.1 Amp Radio in Los Angeles, 98-7 AMP Radio did not start with 10,000 songs commercial free. It now offers commercial-free Mondays. The station adopted the WDZH call sign on May 3, 2010. As of April 11, 2011, Amp Radio discontinued commercial-free Mondays.
The new AMP Radio format features a very tight rotation of mainly current hits, similar to Mike Joseph's Hot Hits
Hot Hits
Hot Hits was a radio format created by consultant Mike Joseph in the 1970s. That concept, which helped spur the birth of what is now known as CHR, also revitalized the Top 40 format and would play a role in bringing the format to the FM band throughout the 1980s.The concept was to play only the...
formatted stations of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The Smooth Jazz format is available on the station's HD2 subcarrier, and online, with one live airshift hosted by Madisun Leigh on weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm. Alexander Zonjic
Alexander Zonjic
Alexander Zonjic is a professional flutist born in Windsor, Ontario, who performs both light jazz and classical compositions. Zonjic initially played guitar at age 9, and by age 15 he was lead guitarist in a local Rhythm and blues band. At age 21, Zonjic purchased his first flute from a street...
hosts Alexander Zonjic from A to Z on Fridays and Sundays from 7 pm to 8 pm.
Also, this is CBS Radio's second station flipping from smooth jazz
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....
to top 40 (KKHH in Houston, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
is the other). Due to this latest flip, CBS Radio has one remaining Smooth Jazz station, KTWV
KTWV
KTWV is a commercial radio station located in Los Angeles, California, broadcasting to the Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside–San Bernardino and Ventura County areas on 94.7 FM. KTWV airs a hybrid Smooth AC radio format branded as "94.7 The Wave"...
"94.7 The Wave" in Los Angeles, but it now leans more toward Smooth AC.
On October 24, 2011, WDZH took advantage of WHTD
WHTD
WPZR is an urban gospel formatted radio station licensed to Mount Clemens, Michigan, and serving the Detroit metropolitan area...
's recent format move from 102.7 to WGPR's 107.5 frequency by registering a domain for www.praise1027.com (due to WHTD flipping to Gospel Music). When the site opens, the message reads "God Wants You To Amp," but it was a decoy to lure listeners to WDZH.
WDZH currently ranked at #19 (6+) in the Detroit market according to the Holiday 2010 PPM Ratings release.