WPOI

WPOI

City of license	St. Petersburg, Florida
Broadcast area	Tampa Bay Area
Branding	Hot 101.5 Star 101.5 HD2 (HD2)
Slogan	"All the Hits"
Frequency	101.5 MHz (also on HD Radio)
First air date	1970s
Format	CHR HD2: Modern AC
ERP	95,000 watts
HAAT	470 meters
Class	C
Facility ID	66013
Callsign meaning	POInt, referencing the frequency's former branding
Former callsigns	WKES (1970s-1997) WILV (1997-1998) WFJO (1998-2002)
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	Hot1015TampaBay.com

WPOI, "Hot 101.5", is an FM radio station in Tampa, Florida broadcasting a CHR (Top 40) format.

The station's HD-2 channel is known as "Star 101.5" and airs a Modern AC format.^[1]

The station's main rivals are WFLZ, WSJT, and, to a lesser extent, WMTX and WLLD.

History

The station started out as WKES, which was a religious station operated by the Moody Bible Institute. In 1997, Paxson Communications purchased WKES, who promptly changed the call letters to WILV and aired a "Love Songs" format branded as "Love 101.5".

WILV was a failure, and in 1998, Paxson Communications was bought out by Clear Channel Communications. With that, the format changed to Rhythmic oldies as WFJO, "Jo 101.5". In 1999, Cox Radio purchased WFJO^{[citation needed]} along with several other stations.

In 2001, the Jammin Oldies' format was abandoned for All-80's as "The New 101.5 The Point". The station was modeled after KHPT in Houston^{[citation needed]} that had launched the previous year. The call letters then became WPOI. The original tagline was "The Best of the 80's and More", which included late 70's and early 90's tracks, along with 80's product.

In 2006, "The Point" started adding more 1990s songs to the playlist, as well as phasing out most of the late 1970s songs in lieu of Cox Radio's marketing strategy that targeted WPOI as a station for mostly 30-year olds^{[citation needed]}. Most of WPOI's older songs began to see airplay on sister station WXGL.

On July 1, 2011, at 10:00am, the station dropped its 80s and 90s format, with Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" as its final song, and began stunting. One hour later, the station flipped to CHR as "Hot 101-5", with LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem as its first song. The station hopes to target a female-friendly 18-49 audience (especially young adults in the 18-34 age bracket) with a music-intensive current-based playlist that borders towards Dance-pop tracks, with less talk and commercials than its competitors.^[2]

References

1. ^ "Cox Announces HD2 Formats In Atlanta & Tampa". All Access Music Group. April 25, 2006. http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/8925/cox-announces-hd2-formats-in-atlanta-tampa. Retrieved July 1, 2011. 
2. ^ "Hot 101.5 turns up the heat on WFLZ and ‘MJ’" from Tampa Bay Times (July 4, 2011)

External links

• Official website of Hot 101.5
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WPOI
• Radio-Locator information on WPOI
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WPOI