Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
WBTI
WBTI is a Hot AC radio station licensed to Lexington, Michigan at 96.9 MHz on the FM dial, with an effective radiated power of 3,000 watts. WBTI covers Sanilac County, Michigan and Lambton County, Ontario as well as portions of Lapeer and St. Clair counties. The station is owned by Radio First and broadcasts from studios on Huron Avenue in Downtown Port Huron.
WBTI's transmitter is located south of Lexington off Gardener Line Road in Sanilac County. WBTI provides a rimshot signal to most of Port Huron, Marysville, and Sarnia, Ontario.
WBTI broadcasts with a 2000's based, gold pop format, with select 90's and early 2010's as well and is positioned as "Port Huron's Hit Music". The format places WBTI between Canadian Top 40 station CFGX-FM and Port Huron mainstream AC station WGRT. WBTI for the past several years has flipped to a Christmas music format during the holidays.
WBTI went on the air in July 1991, owned by Timothy D. Martz of Martz Communications. Martz was a Canadian-born broadcaster with ambitions of purchasing or building a series of American radio stations near the border of the United States and Canada with the intent of providing quality radio that would also be of value to Canadian citizens, while at the same time not having to submit to the more rigid standards of programming required by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and had already had success in another Michigan/Ontario border market - Sault Ste. Marie - with 99.5 Yes-FM. As Sarnia, Ontario was about 25 minutes southeast of Lexington, it fell into this category.
Initially, the station boasted a contemporary hit radio format and the moniker "B96.9, The Killer Bee". Though licensed to Lexington, almost a half-hour north of Port Huron, the station maintained its studios and offices in downtown Port Huron, where it would compete with WPHM, WHLS, WSAQ, WIFN, and WGRT.
However, Martz's ownership of the station would be brief, as the station was sold to Hanson Communications, licensee of WPHM, for $325,000 the following year. Hanson Communications had failed to acquire the construction permit for a new FM in Port Huron after a lengthy series of competitive hearings, and turned its interests towards acquiring WBTI.
Satisfied with the Top 40 format already on the air, Hanson Communications opted to leave it alone at first, but the station gradually shifted in the winter of 1995 to a hot adult contemporary (AC) format, and since then, has shifted back and forth between this format and Top 40, dropping the "Killer Bee" moniker by the end of the 20th century.
Station management has been clever in recent years with their on-air legal IDs, doing their best to keep "WBTI-FM Lexington" to the bare minimum (once per hour per FCC regulations) and using "WBTI Port Huron" several times per hour. When it is the top of the hour WBTI is identified as "WBTI Lexington-Port Huron" with a "WBTI Port Huron" jingle immediately following.
Hub AI
WBTI AI simulator
(@WBTI_simulator)
WBTI
WBTI is a Hot AC radio station licensed to Lexington, Michigan at 96.9 MHz on the FM dial, with an effective radiated power of 3,000 watts. WBTI covers Sanilac County, Michigan and Lambton County, Ontario as well as portions of Lapeer and St. Clair counties. The station is owned by Radio First and broadcasts from studios on Huron Avenue in Downtown Port Huron.
WBTI's transmitter is located south of Lexington off Gardener Line Road in Sanilac County. WBTI provides a rimshot signal to most of Port Huron, Marysville, and Sarnia, Ontario.
WBTI broadcasts with a 2000's based, gold pop format, with select 90's and early 2010's as well and is positioned as "Port Huron's Hit Music". The format places WBTI between Canadian Top 40 station CFGX-FM and Port Huron mainstream AC station WGRT. WBTI for the past several years has flipped to a Christmas music format during the holidays.
WBTI went on the air in July 1991, owned by Timothy D. Martz of Martz Communications. Martz was a Canadian-born broadcaster with ambitions of purchasing or building a series of American radio stations near the border of the United States and Canada with the intent of providing quality radio that would also be of value to Canadian citizens, while at the same time not having to submit to the more rigid standards of programming required by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and had already had success in another Michigan/Ontario border market - Sault Ste. Marie - with 99.5 Yes-FM. As Sarnia, Ontario was about 25 minutes southeast of Lexington, it fell into this category.
Initially, the station boasted a contemporary hit radio format and the moniker "B96.9, The Killer Bee". Though licensed to Lexington, almost a half-hour north of Port Huron, the station maintained its studios and offices in downtown Port Huron, where it would compete with WPHM, WHLS, WSAQ, WIFN, and WGRT.
However, Martz's ownership of the station would be brief, as the station was sold to Hanson Communications, licensee of WPHM, for $325,000 the following year. Hanson Communications had failed to acquire the construction permit for a new FM in Port Huron after a lengthy series of competitive hearings, and turned its interests towards acquiring WBTI.
Satisfied with the Top 40 format already on the air, Hanson Communications opted to leave it alone at first, but the station gradually shifted in the winter of 1995 to a hot adult contemporary (AC) format, and since then, has shifted back and forth between this format and Top 40, dropping the "Killer Bee" moniker by the end of the 20th century.
Station management has been clever in recent years with their on-air legal IDs, doing their best to keep "WBTI-FM Lexington" to the bare minimum (once per hour per FCC regulations) and using "WBTI Port Huron" several times per hour. When it is the top of the hour WBTI is identified as "WBTI Lexington-Port Huron" with a "WBTI Port Huron" jingle immediately following.