WPOW

Infobox Radio Station
name = POWER 96.5 WPOW-FM
city = Miami/Fort Lauderdale


area = South Florida
branding = "Power 96"
slogan =
airdate = 1986
frequency = 96.5 (MHz) HD Radio
format = Rhythmic Top 40
erp = 100,000 watts
class = C
owner = Beasley Broadcast Group
licensee = WPOW License, LP
website = [http://power96.com/ http://power96.com/]
callsign_meaning = W POWER

POWER 96 WPOW-FM is a Rhythmic Top 40 station serving the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area. The Beasley Broadcast Group owns the station, which operates at 96.5 MHz with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 98 kilowatts and is licensed in Miami, Florida. Its transmitter is located in Miami.

History

In the early 1970s, the 96.3 signal was home to a very successful Top 40 CHR station, known as 96 WMYQ (the successor to WGBS-FM), which became 96X (and a call letter change to WMJX) on October 1st, 1975. The station briefly flipped to an all-disco format in April 1979 (Disco 96), but returned to its prior Top 40 format in November of that year.

The station lost its license and signed off on February 15th, 1981. The last song played before sign-off was "The Long And Winding Road" by the Beatles. The last words, tearfully spoken on-air by the DJ, Stuart Elliott were "96X..Is WMJX, Miami"

On June 15, 1985, the station was brought back on the air under new ownership (Wodlinger Broadcasting) as a non-stop Top 40 countdown station (The Super 16) under the same 96X name, this time with the call letters WCJX. The Program Director was Jon Holiday, who evolved the station to a more traditional CHR format. However, after another ownership change in May 1986 (from Wodlinger Broadcasting to Beasley-Reed Broadcasting), they would change format on August 4, 1986 at 7 a.m., when the station flipped to a Dance Top 40 format under the name Power 96 (with a change in call letters to WPOW), playing mostly dance and early rap. The name Power 96 was a mutual idea of Holiday and General Sales Manager Dave Donahue.

As WPOW, the station signed on with deejays Mindy Frumkes and Mark Moseley, and played Timex Social Club's "Rumors" continuously for the first 24 hours. The format change paid off in monster ratings, and WPOW quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the Rhythmic Top 40 community. Some months earlier, WPOW moved up the dial from 96.3 to 96.5 in order to accommodate a recent sign-on at 95.7 in nearby Homestead, Florida.

Despite the station's success with their unique format, WPOW was known for adding non-Rhythmic product (the occasional Rock or Pop track that was hot at the time) in the late 1980s, a practice which would be phased out by the early 1990s. It was at that time that they began embracing R&B and Hip-Hop music, which remain staples on the station today. The station has recently broadened the scope of the playlist to include select dance songs, after purging the genre from its playlist in 2002 (the year after WPYM's 12/31/01 debut). They have also embraced Hispanic Rhythmic acts, which now has been all but phased out as well in favor for some Dance music which the station has not aired since 2002, as the station caters to a large Hispanic and Caribbean audience in South Florida, and has brought back the occasional pop track. Even Dance recurrents from artists like The Real McCoy are starting to show up, leading to speculations that they might be [http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,92462.0.html going back] to its Dance-leaning roots. WPOW's broadened approach also points to a trend that seems to be taking place in several other Rhythmics, like KLUC/Las Vegas, XHTO/El Paso, KYLD/San Francisco and WBBM/Chicago.

In this fashion, WPOW's main competitor is Mainstream Urban rival WEDR. This competition among the two has been fierce because they are both long running heritage Hip Hop/R&B stations in the market, but despite this, it had no effect to where either WEDR or WPOW are forced to change formats. Other markets such as New York City and San Francisco can also make this claim as well for having Urban and Rhythmic rivals play the same genres with different approaches and having a heritage status.

In 2005 WPOW launched an HD FM station "HD DASH DANCE2", which has now (July 08) been changed to "Pirate 96" a reggae HD channel. A similar "DASH-2" HD subchannel exists at sister station WRDW-FM "WIRED 96-5" in Philadelphia.

External links

* [http://www.power96.com Power 96's website]
* [http://www.power96-2.com HD-Dash2's website]
* [http://www.radio-locator.com Radio Locator web site]
* [http://radiopages.net/radio/radioh.html South Florida Radio History web site]
*fmq|WPOW