WVOL

WVOL
City Berry Hill, Tennessee
Broadcast area Nashville
Branding The Mighty 147
Frequency 1470 kHz
First air date 1951
Format Urban Oldies
Power 5,000 watts day
1,000 watts night
Class B
Facility ID 52522
Transmitter coordinates 36°12′1″N 86°46′47″W / 36.20028°N 86.77972°W / 36.20028; -86.77972
Callsign meaning VOLunteer (state nickname)[1]
Former callsigns WSOK (1951–1957)
Owner Heidelberg Broadcasting, LLC
Webcast Listen Live
Website Official website

WVOL (1470 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Urban Oldies format. Licensed to the Nashville suburb of Berry Hill, Tennessee, USA, the station serves the Nashville area. The station is currently owned by Heidelberg Broadcasting, LLC.[2][3] The station and transmitter are co-located just north of downtown Nashville in the Cumberland Heights district.

History

The station was founded in 1951 as WSOK. WSOK's original format was rhythm and blues and urban gospel music. WSOK was the first station in the Nashville market to program primarily to the city's African-American community. After a change in ownership in 1957, the call letters were changed to WVOL, but the station continued its focus on the local African-American community.

In 1980, The Phoenix Communication Group acquired WVOL. The station dropped live programming and affiliated with Satellite Music Network in 1988. The network, impressed with the station, launched a format based on WVOL's sound. WVOL aired satellite-fed programming until 1993. Around that time, the station was sold to Dickey Brothers Broadcasting.[4]

In a transaction that closed in April 2000, WVOL was purchased by John Heidelberg, an African-American entrepreneur who was a former employee of both WVOL and WSM, from Dickey Brothers Broadcasting in exchange for cash and an FM construction permit that would later become WRQQ (now WLVU). WVOL's format was urban gospel during the day, and jazz overnight. In 1970, when Heidelberg was acting program director of WVOL, he was the first person to employ Oprah Winfrey, then a local high school student, as a broadcaster. Eventually becoming a news anchor on WVOL, Winfrey later launched her TV career as an anchor with WLAC-TV in Nashville, before becoming an iconic national talk show host.

WVOL switched to its current format of urban adult contemporary, urban oldies and talk shows in March 2001.

In March 2011, WVOL suffered $1 million in damage when vandals cut the transmission lines to all six of the station's towers.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Call Letter Origins". Radio History on the Web.
  2. ↑ "WVOL Facility Record". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.
  3. ↑ "WVOL Station Information Profile". Arbitron.
  4. ↑ WVOL history page
  5. ↑ http://www.radio-info.com/news/vandals-cause-1-million-damage-to-tennessee-radio-station
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