City Montauk, New York Branding 104.7 WELJ First air date 1993 (as WBEA) | Broadcast area Eastern Long Island Frequency 104.7 MHz | |
Slogan The East End's Easy Favorites | ||
WELJ (104.7 FM) is a radio station licensed to Montauk, New York and serving the East End of Long Island.
The station is owned by BOLD Broadcasting, LLC and broadcasts at 104.7 MHz with 6 kW ERP from a tower also in Montauk, New York. The station was assigned its current WELJ call sign by the Federal Communications Commission on September 21, 2010. The station is currently airing a soft adult contemporary/oldies format as "The East End's Easy Favorites" with the 'East End' referring to the part of Long Island east of and including the Hamptons and the North Fork.
History
The 104.7 frequency first signed on in 1993 as WBEA, then based fully in Montauk. Initially, the station launched with an Adult Contemporary format near identical to that which had been heard on WHFM (prior to its change to a relay of WBAB) the previous year. However, within a year the format evolved to a Hot Adult Contemporary format with the Beach Radio name.
Beach Radio saw a level of success not seen by other stations located on the east end of Long Island, as it rated not only in the full Long Island book on a regular basis, but in that of the New London, Connecticut market (where it delivers a listenable, though not local-quality signal) as well. Even with this, the various owners of WBEA kept Long Island as their main focus.
When then-WBEA owner AAA Entertainment purchased WBAZ (101.7 FM) and WBSQ (102.5 FM) in 2000, the company began to realign its formats among its signals. After moving WBAZ to WBSQ's signal in May 2001, it was announced that WBEA would move to the former WBAZ frequency at 101.7 MHz with 104.7 becoming a New London rimshot. During the interim period, 104.7 had the temporary WCSO calls.
In June 2001, AAA entered a deal with Mohegan Sun to program and operate the then-WCSO, with AAA keeping technical operations. With the deal came a new format, Classic rock, and the new call sign of WMOS. In 2003, AAA Entertainment sold WMOS and sister WWKX in the Providence market to Citadel Broadcasting.
On March 17, 2008, 104.7 and sister station 102.3 made a frequency swap. WXLM and its News/Talk format was moved to 104.7, while WMOS and its Classic Rock format was moved to 102.3. Both formats were retained on their new respective facilities.
On September 21, 2010, WXLM changed its call sign to WELJ as part of a pending format change. The WXLM call sign was moved to 980 AM, replacing the historic call sign WSUB. Shortly after, the News/Talk format began to simulcast on 980 AM with frequent announcements that WXLM is moving to 980 AM.
On November 3, 2010, WELJ broke away from its simulcast with 980 AM and changed their format to Hot Adult Contemporary. Known on-air as the new 104-7 WELJ, the station promoted 10,000 songs in-a-row, non-stop with zero commercials through the month of November. Although it was anticipated to be a full simulcast of sister station WPLJ in New York, the station had its own identity with local DJ's such as Jody, Johnny Mac, Paula Wyn and Joshua Spatafore, along with plans to add The Big Show with Scott & Todd from WPLJ for its morning show.
Citadel merged with Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011. To comply with Federal Communications Commission ownership restrictions, WELJ was then transferred to Volt Radio, LLC.
On November 3, 2014, WELJ dropped its Hot AC format and flipped back to a simulcast, this time of WNSH in Newark, which carries a country format as "Nash FM 94.7", with the simulcast evidently only being noted in station IDs.
On August 31, 2015, WELJ dropped its simulcast with WNSH and rebranded as "104.7 Nash Icon".
On July 19, 2016, Joule Broadcasting announced that WELJ will be sold to BOLD Broadcasting, LLC
On November 1, 2016, BOLD Broadcasting, LLC. acquired WELJ, and became the East End market's first Christmas music station, to launch a new format after Christmas. BOLD Broadcasting has announced a new format will launch on December 26 at noon.
At the promised time, WELJ launched a soft adult contemporary/oldies format as "104.7 WELJ". The first song under the new format was "Easy" by The Commodores.