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WZRM
WZRM (97.7 FM, "Rumba 97.7") is a Spanish-language radio station in the Boston market, carrying a Spanish contemporary hits format. Owned and operated by iHeartMedia, it serves the Metro Boston and South Shore areas of Massachusetts, and is licensed to Brockton. The station's studios are located in Medford and the transmitter site is atop Great Blue Hill.
WZRM first went on the air in 1948 as WBET-FM, the sister station of WBET (990 AM, now WBMS 1460) in Brockton (WBET would subsequently buy WBKA 1450 and WBKA-FM 107.1, shut down the WBKA stations, and move its AM facility from 990 to 1460). The two stations almost always simulcast programming for the next 28 years. On November 1, 1976, WBET-FM went stereo and broke away from the AM to broadcast a top 40 format. On January 1, 1977, the call letters were changed to WCAV. In July 1982, the station switched to country music and targeted the South Shore of Massachusetts. This format continued until 1999. For some of that time, WCAV was the only country music station on the FM dial in the Greater Boston area.
In 1999, WCAV was purchased by Radio One, a company that owns and operates radio stations which target African American communities. Radio One made many transmitter improvements and established new studios in Roxbury, a largely African American section of Boston. After weeks of dead air and a five-day long stunt of a loop of Tone Lōc's "Wild Thing", the station was relaunched on December 6, 1999, as WBOT, Hot 97.7, targeting the Greater Boston area with a mainstream urban format.
From the very beginning, the 97.7 signal had been plagued by a poor signal in Boston and points north. However, after the relocation of WBOT's transmitter to Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts, in summer 2005, the station's signal improved dramatically.
WBOT never made any significant strides against its main competitor (and eventual sister station) WJMN ("Jam'n 94.5"), a station which had no signal problem and depended chiefly on the region's large Caucasian population for success. At the same time, Radio One had been experiencing great success with the urban adult contemporary and urban oldies format of WILD (1090), an AM radio station that was prohibited by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations from operating at night.
On October 20, 2005, Radio One moved the format and intellectual property of WILD to WBOT's FM signal. This move eliminated WBOT from the Boston radio dial, and created the new 97.7 WILD FM. WILD-FM would air the urban adult contemporary programming previously heard on WILD (AM) during the day, and aired the old WBOT's mainstream urban format during the late afternoon and early evening hours. The station officially changed call letters to WILD-FM on October 26, 2005.
The former "Hot 97.7" format subsequently reappeared on 97.5, before moving to 87.7 as a pirate radio station. The operations on these frequencies were not affiliated with Radio One. The station was shut down in 2010. The group now maintains a web-only presence.
On August 20, 2006, radio industry website All Access reported that Entercom had agreed to purchase WILD-FM from Radio One; by the next day, Entercom had assumed control of the station via an LMA, and WILD-FM signed off with "Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc at about 7:00 p.m., as the station began stunting with Microsoft Sam's voice reciting a countdown (while interspersing a random quote a few times every 30 seconds or 1 minute) to 5:30 p.m. the following day, August 22, 2006. At that time, the station began simulcasting Worcester-based rock station WAAF, with the first song under the simulcast being "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)" by AC/DC. The station changed its calls to WKAF on August 30, 2006, to reflect the new simulcast.
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WZRM
WZRM (97.7 FM, "Rumba 97.7") is a Spanish-language radio station in the Boston market, carrying a Spanish contemporary hits format. Owned and operated by iHeartMedia, it serves the Metro Boston and South Shore areas of Massachusetts, and is licensed to Brockton. The station's studios are located in Medford and the transmitter site is atop Great Blue Hill.
WZRM first went on the air in 1948 as WBET-FM, the sister station of WBET (990 AM, now WBMS 1460) in Brockton (WBET would subsequently buy WBKA 1450 and WBKA-FM 107.1, shut down the WBKA stations, and move its AM facility from 990 to 1460). The two stations almost always simulcast programming for the next 28 years. On November 1, 1976, WBET-FM went stereo and broke away from the AM to broadcast a top 40 format. On January 1, 1977, the call letters were changed to WCAV. In July 1982, the station switched to country music and targeted the South Shore of Massachusetts. This format continued until 1999. For some of that time, WCAV was the only country music station on the FM dial in the Greater Boston area.
In 1999, WCAV was purchased by Radio One, a company that owns and operates radio stations which target African American communities. Radio One made many transmitter improvements and established new studios in Roxbury, a largely African American section of Boston. After weeks of dead air and a five-day long stunt of a loop of Tone Lōc's "Wild Thing", the station was relaunched on December 6, 1999, as WBOT, Hot 97.7, targeting the Greater Boston area with a mainstream urban format.
From the very beginning, the 97.7 signal had been plagued by a poor signal in Boston and points north. However, after the relocation of WBOT's transmitter to Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts, in summer 2005, the station's signal improved dramatically.
WBOT never made any significant strides against its main competitor (and eventual sister station) WJMN ("Jam'n 94.5"), a station which had no signal problem and depended chiefly on the region's large Caucasian population for success. At the same time, Radio One had been experiencing great success with the urban adult contemporary and urban oldies format of WILD (1090), an AM radio station that was prohibited by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations from operating at night.
On October 20, 2005, Radio One moved the format and intellectual property of WILD to WBOT's FM signal. This move eliminated WBOT from the Boston radio dial, and created the new 97.7 WILD FM. WILD-FM would air the urban adult contemporary programming previously heard on WILD (AM) during the day, and aired the old WBOT's mainstream urban format during the late afternoon and early evening hours. The station officially changed call letters to WILD-FM on October 26, 2005.
The former "Hot 97.7" format subsequently reappeared on 97.5, before moving to 87.7 as a pirate radio station. The operations on these frequencies were not affiliated with Radio One. The station was shut down in 2010. The group now maintains a web-only presence.
On August 20, 2006, radio industry website All Access reported that Entercom had agreed to purchase WILD-FM from Radio One; by the next day, Entercom had assumed control of the station via an LMA, and WILD-FM signed off with "Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc at about 7:00 p.m., as the station began stunting with Microsoft Sam's voice reciting a countdown (while interspersing a random quote a few times every 30 seconds or 1 minute) to 5:30 p.m. the following day, August 22, 2006. At that time, the station began simulcasting Worcester-based rock station WAAF, with the first song under the simulcast being "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)" by AC/DC. The station changed its calls to WKAF on August 30, 2006, to reflect the new simulcast.