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WDCH-FM
WDCH-FM (99.1 MHz) – branded Bloomberg 99.1 – is a commercial business news radio station licensed to Bowie, Maryland, and serving the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station is operated by Bloomberg L.P. as the market network affiliate for Bloomberg Radio. WDCH-FM sometimes airs D.C. United soccer and Washington Wizards basketball games whenever sports radio sister station WJFK-FM (106.7 "The Fan") is carrying a different game.
The studios and offices are near the Washington Navy Yard along the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington, while the station transmitter is in Odenton, Maryland. WDCH is one of the few stations that targets both Baltimore and Washington DC, since its transmitter is located halfway between the two cities, providing a strong city-grade signal to both. WDCH-FM programming is also heard on the HD-2 digital subchannel on 105.7 WJZ-FM.
WNAV-FM signed on along with WNAV (1430 AM) on April 22, 1949, with studios located at 89 West Street in Annapolis.
As FM radios were still relatively rare in 1949, WNAV-FM aired beautiful music that was used for "storecasting": a subscription service aimed for stores to use as background music, with limited advertising and announcements aimed at shoppers. Though the broadcasts were not encrypted or restricted in any way, the programming was not intended for reception by the general public; subscribers had specialized receivers to insert announcements for their shoppers. By 1959, WNAV-FM claimed to have 150 supermarket customers in a 100-mile radius: west to the Washington metropolitan area, north to Westminster, south to Onancock, Virginia and east to Elkton.
However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had always scrutinized such "functional music operations" on FM, considering it and transitcasting (a similar concept aimed at bus and streetcar riders) to be an improper use of the public airwaves. It reasoned that if a station could be received by the general public, it should provide programming intended for the general public. In 1955, it first proposed requiring these stations to place their subscription content on a subcarrier, which would need a purpose-built receiver. This was colloquially referred to at the time as "multiplexing", leading to the back-formed term of "simplexing" to refer to the broadcast of content for subscribers. FM stations protested that their potential audiences were so small that they could not survive without the stream of subscription income. After several delays, the commission set the date of the rule change on January 1, 1958. WNAV-FM was one of several FM stations that sought a waiver to continue, but was denied. However, the rule change to require multiplexing was subject to litigation. In 1959, the United States Supreme Court refused to overturn a lower-court ruling which blocked the new rule, and the FCC rescinded it on its own pending further study.
Increasing audiences for FM eventually allowed stations to survive on their own; by 1963, WNAV-FM was one of four remaining FM stations in the country that still performed storecasting, and one of only two outside of the Chicago market. With public opposition now having dried up, the FCC finally banned simplexing effective December 31, 1964; WNAV-FM received an exemption through July 1, 1965, which allowed it time to install a new 50 kW transmitter. It continued with the beautiful music format.
In 1983, the station changed its call sign to WLOM-FM.
In 1983 the owners of WHFS, then licensed to Bethesda at 102.3 FM, sold that station for $2 million and used the money to purchase WLOM along with its sister station WNAV 1430 AM. The WHFS progressive rock format and call letters were then moved to 99.1 FM, licensed to operate with 50,000 watts with much higher power than the 102.3 facility, which broadcasts with only 3,000 watts. Thus WHFS on 99.1 could then be heard in Baltimore, Washington, and much of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
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WDCH-FM
WDCH-FM (99.1 MHz) – branded Bloomberg 99.1 – is a commercial business news radio station licensed to Bowie, Maryland, and serving the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station is operated by Bloomberg L.P. as the market network affiliate for Bloomberg Radio. WDCH-FM sometimes airs D.C. United soccer and Washington Wizards basketball games whenever sports radio sister station WJFK-FM (106.7 "The Fan") is carrying a different game.
The studios and offices are near the Washington Navy Yard along the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington, while the station transmitter is in Odenton, Maryland. WDCH is one of the few stations that targets both Baltimore and Washington DC, since its transmitter is located halfway between the two cities, providing a strong city-grade signal to both. WDCH-FM programming is also heard on the HD-2 digital subchannel on 105.7 WJZ-FM.
WNAV-FM signed on along with WNAV (1430 AM) on April 22, 1949, with studios located at 89 West Street in Annapolis.
As FM radios were still relatively rare in 1949, WNAV-FM aired beautiful music that was used for "storecasting": a subscription service aimed for stores to use as background music, with limited advertising and announcements aimed at shoppers. Though the broadcasts were not encrypted or restricted in any way, the programming was not intended for reception by the general public; subscribers had specialized receivers to insert announcements for their shoppers. By 1959, WNAV-FM claimed to have 150 supermarket customers in a 100-mile radius: west to the Washington metropolitan area, north to Westminster, south to Onancock, Virginia and east to Elkton.
However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had always scrutinized such "functional music operations" on FM, considering it and transitcasting (a similar concept aimed at bus and streetcar riders) to be an improper use of the public airwaves. It reasoned that if a station could be received by the general public, it should provide programming intended for the general public. In 1955, it first proposed requiring these stations to place their subscription content on a subcarrier, which would need a purpose-built receiver. This was colloquially referred to at the time as "multiplexing", leading to the back-formed term of "simplexing" to refer to the broadcast of content for subscribers. FM stations protested that their potential audiences were so small that they could not survive without the stream of subscription income. After several delays, the commission set the date of the rule change on January 1, 1958. WNAV-FM was one of several FM stations that sought a waiver to continue, but was denied. However, the rule change to require multiplexing was subject to litigation. In 1959, the United States Supreme Court refused to overturn a lower-court ruling which blocked the new rule, and the FCC rescinded it on its own pending further study.
Increasing audiences for FM eventually allowed stations to survive on their own; by 1963, WNAV-FM was one of four remaining FM stations in the country that still performed storecasting, and one of only two outside of the Chicago market. With public opposition now having dried up, the FCC finally banned simplexing effective December 31, 1964; WNAV-FM received an exemption through July 1, 1965, which allowed it time to install a new 50 kW transmitter. It continued with the beautiful music format.
In 1983, the station changed its call sign to WLOM-FM.
In 1983 the owners of WHFS, then licensed to Bethesda at 102.3 FM, sold that station for $2 million and used the money to purchase WLOM along with its sister station WNAV 1430 AM. The WHFS progressive rock format and call letters were then moved to 99.1 FM, licensed to operate with 50,000 watts with much higher power than the 102.3 facility, which broadcasts with only 3,000 watts. Thus WHFS on 99.1 could then be heard in Baltimore, Washington, and much of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.