City Seymour, Wisconsin Branding KZ 104.3 Frequency 104.3 MHz | Broadcast area Green Bay-Appleton Slogan "80s, 90s, and More!" First air date 1998 (as WECB) | |
WKZG (104.3 FM) is a radio station licensed to Seymour, Wisconsin and serving the Fox Cities and Northeast Wisconsin. Owned and operated by Woodward Communications, WKZG airs an adult hits format. WKZG's studios are located on College Avenue in Appleton, while its transmitter is located in Seymour.
History
The station launched in the spring of 1998 as WECB under the ownership of Earl Brooker and his wife, Carol (the namesakes of the call letters). Earl Brooker was a local businessman, politician, and long-time Fox Cities radio personality (he worked the 5:30–9:00 morning shift on WECB). Under the Brookers' ownership, WECB featured a 70s Hits format, and also featured broadcasts of Green Bay Gamblers hockey and Wisconsin Timber Rattlers baseball.
On April 1, 2003, the Brookers sold WECB to Dubuque, Iowa-based Woodward Communications, with the station joining Woodward's Northeast Wisconsin radio cluster. On July 18, 2003, Woodward would change WECB's format to Soft Adult Contemporary as "104.3 The Breeze, Northeast Wisconsin's Lite Rock". "The Breeze" featured a schedule that included the John Tesh Radio Show (Monday–Saturday mornings), as well as all-Christmas music annually during November and December.
In December 2009, WECB continued its holiday music past Christmas, with the promise that "one more gift" would be presented at 3 PM on December 31; along with that announcement, cryptic advertisements asking "Hey! Where's Chuck?" appeared in local newspapers. At 3 PM on December 31 (after Gayla Peevey's "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" finished playing), WECB became WCHK-FM and introduced a new adult hits format under the branding of "Chuck FM", with The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" the first song being played. "Chuck FM" was patterned after the Jack FM-style of adult hits stations, in that the music playlist was generally wide-ranging, hard-edged voiceover liners were used in lieu of DJs, and the on-air presentation was irreverent; such irreverence was highlighted by WCHK's decision to "play nothing" but dead air during the Green Bay Packers' appearance in Super Bowl XLV in February 2011.
On November 1, 2012, "Chuck FM" was dropped from WCHK, and the station began playing round-the-clock Christmas music (as "The Christmas Station"), a move not made by WCHK or any other Green Bay/Appleton radio station during the holiday season since the days leading up to "Chuck FM's" debut at the end of 2009. The all-Christmas stunting ended at midnight on the morning of December 26, when the station (which changed its call sign to WKZG on November 9) flipped to "KZ104.3", which featured adult hits from the 1980s and 1990s and a core artist list that includes artists such as George Michael, Bon Jovi, and Madonna (the latter artist's "Vogue" was the first song played). Unlike "Chuck FM's" DJ-free format, "KZ104.3" features on-air personalities, including Mario Lopez's national show at nights and local staff including the husband-and-wife team of Doug Erickson and Mary Love, who hosted WKZG's morning shift after moving over from the morning slot at Top 40 sister station WKSZ.
On September 16, 2013, "KZ104.3" began simulcasting on its Chilton-licensed sister station WKZY (92.9 FM), which as WXMM had aired a contemporary country music format since its September 2011 sign-on. The simulcast move allowed "KZ104.3," which would be rechristened "KZ Radio" in early 2014, to extend its reach to better cover the Southern Fox Valley, including the cities of Oshkosh and Fond du Lac, where its main 104.3 signal may be hard to reach.
The 104.3/92.9 simulcast was dropped on February 15, 2016, when WKZY switched to a simulcast of its Top 40 sister station WKSZ. In addition, morning hosts Doug and Mary moved back to WKSZ's morning slot on the same day, and WKZG would revert to the "KZ104.3" moniker. On February 25, WKZG tweaked their format by incorporating more material from the 2000s to recent times, though the station still includes 80s and 90s songs.