Technical Profile: WTBC

AM Technical Profile: WTBC

Frequency:: 1230
Format:: Sports Talk
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] [street view #2]Just north of Alberta City, between Jack Warner Parkway and 25th Avenue East. Almost due north of the cul-de-sac of 23rd Avenue Northeast.
Power (ERP):: Day: 1 kW; Night: 1 kW
Antenna:: 1 tower
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files

[FCC]
[FCCData.org]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]; [Facebook] For Tide 100.9

[Studio] Street view imagery of the barely-visible studio behind the Olive Garden on McFarland Boulevard in Tuscaloosa.; //W265CG Tuscaloosa

Owned by Townsquare Media
History:: This station dates back to an original construction permit issued to Thomas H. Todd, Bertram Bank, Lamar Branscomb and Jeff Coleman (as Tuscaloosa Broadcasting Company) for a new 250 watt station on 1450 kHz, in September 1946. The original call sign assigned was WTBC (for Tuscaloosa Broadcasting Company). The original transmitter location appears to have been located at 15th Street at Forrest Lake (near present day Forest Lake Drive?) The studios were listed as being at the City Hall building on 24th Avenue downtown. The transmitter used was an RCA BTA 250L. In February 1947, before they'd even filed a license to cover, the station applied to move to 1230 kHz, which at the time was occupied by Tuscaloosa's first AM station, WJRD. Waiting for WJRD to move meant that the station couldn't file a license to cover for 1230 kHz until September 1948.

Aside #1: The application to move to 1230 kHz was also accompanied by a request for a new vertical antenna installation as well as mounting of an FM antenna on the AM tower. This predated any known FM companion by a decade, so it's unclear if the station actually had an earlier FM sister, an experimental operation or if it was abandoned due to unknown factors. What is clear is that WTBC-FM would not launch until 1958, on 95.7 MHz, with an automated easy listening format.

In 1955, the stations moved their studios to the "Radio Center" at Forrest Lake and 15th Street, near the transmitter site.

The station was known to have a Top 40 format through the 60's, and was also the flagship for University of Alabama sports. In 1964 they were granted a permit to increase daytime power to 1,000 watts and install a new Bauer 707 transmitter. A license to cover for that change was granted in March 1965.

In 1980, the station increased the height of the tower to better accommodate the FM side, which by then was WUOA-FM. The Top 40 lasted until 1983 or 1984, when competition from nearby Birmingham FMs probably ate away at their listenership. The station had transitioned to an Adult Contemporary/Oldies mix by 1983 according to that year's Broadcasting Yearbook. In 1984, the call sign changed to WIGL and ownership transitioned from Tuscaloosa Broadcasting Company to Keymarket Communications of Alabama. In 1987, the call sign changed to WRRX and the format flipped to Beautiful Music after the stations were acquired by Target Communications of Alabama. In 1988 the license was passed to Arrow Communications, Inc. In 1989 the call sign changed to WRLX but the format was still Beautiful Music.

In December 1991, the station flipped to a News/Talk format as WTNW; this was followed up by a sale of the station and WFFX to Alabama Universal Corporation for $1 million.

Aside #2: Of interest is that as a talk station, they were the second station in Alabama to carry the Don and Mike show, a nationally syndicated "hot talk" comedy afternoon drive show out of Washington DC. The show was popular but apparently hard to sell to advertisers, leading to many humorous bits where the General Manager Warren Kirk (known to the Don and Mike crew as "Warren Gump" for his thick southern accent and slow manner of speaking) would call up asking for help and/or threatening to cancel the show. At one point, the show called out for people to show up at a random phone booth somewhere in town to see how many listeners they could gather in one spot, to prove their popularity. It wound up being well over 50 people showing up on short notice to say hello into the phone, leading to a reprieve from cancellation.

In 1996, the station, along with sister FM WFFX, was purchased by Cox Communications. Cox only wanted the lucrative FM, so they spun this station off to Tuscaloosa Radio LLC for just $50,000 in 1997. They changed the call sign back to WTBC and flipped to a short-lived Easy Listening format. It probably lasted less than a year, as Broadcasting Yearbooks of this era don't even list it. By 1998 it was back to News/Talk.

The station was purchased by John Sisty Enterprises (owner of Marion-licensed WNPT-FM) in 2002.; In February 2011 it became known that the station would acquire an FM translator (W286BV Demopolis). The station had also branched out into music during non-talk dayparts, as is calling itself "1230 The River". The station's translator outlet eventually moved to 100.1 as W261BT. At the end of August 2013, the station was reported to be relaying WNPT's "Catfish Country" Classic Country programming. The station, along with WNPT, was sold to Townsquare Media in May of 2016. Roughly a month later, the Catfish Country moved to WTBC and its translator exclusively after WNPT flipped to sports.

In October 2023, the Catfish Country format's primary station swapped places with the Sports Talk "Tide 100.9", moving the county music to WTUG-HD2.

In October 2026, Townsquare was granted a permit to co-locate their black gospel WTSK to this station's tower site in Alberta City.