105.3 started in the
early 70's as a companion of WBGS AM 1560 in Slidell. The FM also was licensed
to Slidell at the time. For a time it was WVSL, then WXEL. Tried black
formatting, but did not have the tower height to compete in New Orleans.
The station went through several owners and silent periouds. In the early
80's, by taking reclassification as a C1, it was able to relocate on a
taller tower closer to New Orleans. WLTS, Lite 105 was born. Since then,
it has had the same format and identity, though it is now more of a mainstream
adult contemporary station than a truly "lite" one now. New Orleans had
two competing soft AC stations, WLTS and WLMG. Now that they're owned by
the same company, this one has moved to a more mainstram AC format to differentiate
itself. It no longer is "Lite 105" either. In the early spring of 2000,
this station changed format to a hot AC-ish CHR kind of format, with the
popular "Star 105.3" slogan. In October, WLTS became WKZN, The Zone, with
the same format of hot AC CHR.
