FM Technical Profile: WEZB

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Station Name:

B 97

Frequency:

97.1

Format:

Urban CHR

Transmitter Location:

[map] [street view] Off Behman Highway in eastern New Orleans, near Terrytown. Co-located with K28IL and WKBU-FM.

Power (ERP):

99 kW

Antenna:

Omnidirectional

Beam tilt ERP 100 kW

Antenna HAAT:

984 feet.

Other Information:

60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.


HD-2: LGBTQ+ Music and Information
"Channel Q"

:
PS-artist - song on B-97
Time-?
Text-WEZB
PTY-Top 40
PI-WEZB-FM

AUX: 62 kW @ 646 feet. 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.

More Information:

[FCC]

[FCCdata]

[Radio-Locator]

[Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
[Image] Display from an Insignia HD portable in Baldwin County, Alabama, showing a full decode of the station's HD signal, with song title and artist shown.
[Studio] Street View imagery of the building that houses Sinclair's radio studios, on the 9th floor of the 400 Poydras building in downtown New Orleans.

Owner:

Audacy

History:

This station was put on the air by George J. Mayoral (as Supreme Broadcasting Company), to be the companion of 990 AM WJMR and WJMR-TV.  When it signed on in 1945, it was WRCM and it simulcast the AM's programming, transmitting from atop the Jung Hotel.  Studios were on the 19th floor of the hotel.

The AM and FM were purchased in 1968 by Summit Broadcasting Company, Inc.  Under their ownership, the stations became WNNR and WNNR-FM.

EZ Communications purchased the station in 1972.  They flipped the station to Easy Listening, with the WEZB calls.  This matched their other stations in other markets, all with the same format and "EZ" in the call sign somewhere.  The station dropped the format to get on the Disco train in the late 70's, as "Disco 97", but that format was short-lived.  In 1980, the station re-launched as "B97" with a Top 40 format. 

The station has remained Top 40 ever since, with one small diversion in the mid-90's towards Hot Talk, with Howard Stern and other national entertainment talk shows.  That didn't work out, so they went back to music but with a more Adult Contemporary-leaning Top 40 sound.  By the early 2000's, the station was back to a full-on Top 40 sound, with a heavy emphasis on the Rhythmic side of things.

The station was acquired by Sinclair Broadcasting in 1996.  They, in turn, sold it to Entercom in 1999 as part of a package deal with 45 other stations.

The station began broadcasting in HD digital radio in 2010. 

In 2018 the station added a second subchannel, simulcasting the R&B-formatted "Hot 103.7" that was being heard on WWWL AM and its translator.  That format later rebranded as "Hot 92.9" with Classic R&B when Entercom launched a new, more powerful FM translator on 92.9 MHz.

Entercom rebranded as Audacy in March 2021.  That same year the station's HD2 dropped the "Hot 92.9" simulcast with WWWL and its translator, leaving just the "Channel Q" LGBTQ-themed channel.