City Toledo, Ohio Branding 101.5 The River | Broadcast area Toledo, Ohio | |
Slogan The '80s to Now
Toledo's Home For the Holidays (Nov.-Dec.) Frequency 101.5 MHz (also on HD Radio) Translator(s) 92.1 W221BG (Toledo, relays WRVF-HD2/WSPD) | ||
WRVF (101.5 FM, "101.5 The River") is an American adult contemporary music formatted radio station in Toledo, Ohio, owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications). The station boasts a signal that covers most of northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan and can be heard well in parts of the Detroit area. The station is audible as far north as Sterling Heights, Michigan, as far east as Sandusky, Ohio, westward almost to the Indiana state line, and almost as far south as Lima, Ohio. The 101.5 frequency has featured some form of soft music format for decades, evolving from easy listening into mainstream AC.
Contents
The River is locally well known, some might say infamous, for playing non-stop Christmas music between mid-November through Christmas day, one of the first AC stations in the country to do so. This tradition began in 1995 (the year the station's calls changed from WLQR-FM), several years before the practice became commonplace for AC stations around North America. The morning show of WRVF featured Toledo radio legend Jack "Mitch" Mitchell until March 31, 2006.
WRVF's studios and offices are located at Superior and Lafayette in downtown Toledo. The station's transmitter is located at North Wynn Road at Cedar Point Road in Oregon, Ohio.
History
What is now WRVF began as WSPD-FM, signing on the air on August 11, 1946. The station served as a partial simulcast of WSPD-AM until the late 1960s when the station adopted a MOR format using Drake-Chenault's "Hit Parade" package. In 1971 the station was sold to Susquehanna Broadcasting and became a beautiful music station, known as "Stereo 101 - WLQR". It played half-hour music tapes mastered at Susquehanna's studios in York PA with local announcers Steve Kendall, Mike Stanley, Larry Weseman and Bill Stewart. The station retained this format until 1987 when it became "Soft Rock 101.5 WLQR"; by this time the station was again co-owned with WSPD.
A few years later the station began stunting by playing "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks with a man with a southern voice announcing that something new was coming to WLQR on Monday. The following Monday the station kept its soft AC format and became "101.5 The River", changing its call letters to WRVF.
HD Programming
Since 2007, WRVF-FM has been broadcasting in IBOC "HD Radio":
WRVF is also the (LP) Local Primary (EAS) Emergency Alert Station in Northwestern Ohio. The station broadcasts with an effective radiated power of 33,000 watts.
WRVF became the new home of the popular "Friday Night '80s" feature in May 2007 after crosstown competitor WWWM-FM (Star 105) dropped it in favor of Delilah six nights a week. However, from 7 p.m. to midnight on Friday nights, the show consists of John Tesh's show with 1980s music played in place of the normal AC format. The River also aired the 1980s version of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 Saturday nights from 6 to 10 p.m., until the show was dropped after Christmas of 2011.
From October 2010 to October 2014, WRVF had a competitor in the AC format in "My 98-3" WMIM, licensed to Luna Pier, Michigan. WMIM switched to a country music format in October 2014, leaving WRVF again as the only mainstream AC station in the market. Also in the fall of 2014, WRVF backed away from its longtime "soft rock" image and began re-imaging itself as "The '80s to Now," with a slightly more contemporary music mix.