WYPV

WYPV History

The license for what is now 94.5 FM was first issued in February 1985. The station's original call letters were WSSW (for the station's founder, Sonora S. Wray), which were first issued in October 1986. After a series of construction-related delays, WSSW first signed on at 94.3 in 1989 with an automated MOR format, but went dark not long after that. The station, while at 94.3, was initially assigned a Class A power output of 3,000 watts, which made the station all but unlistenable outside of the Mackinaw City-St. Ignace area, a seasonal, tourist-driven market barely able to sustain the competing radio stations that were already on the air and firmly established. WSSW's management thought that perhaps packing the station with tourist-related information for the local area would help reverse its fortunes. The station did improve, but not enough. Wray sold the station to Robert A. Naismith in February 1992.

Naismith returned the station to the air with a hot adult contemporary format as WFGE, known as "Fudgie 94" (as in Mackinac Island's famous fudge). Then in 1995, the station changed calls to WLJZ and changed its frequency to 94.5 with an increase in power, which increased its broadcast area substantially to include most of the northern tip of the lower peninsula, bringing a better signal to Petoskey, Gaylord, and Rogers City and reaching almost as far north as Sault Ste. Marie (though the station did, and still does, suffer from interference from co-channel WCEN-FM in the southern fringes of its listening area). WLJZ adopted Jones Radio Networks' satellite-fed smooth jazz format as "Coast FM," simulcasting with WAVC 93.9 FM in Mio and WJZJ 95.5.

In 1998, "Coast FM," suffering from low ratings, was dropped in favor of "The Zone." WAVC eventually dropped out of the "Zone" network to simulcast country sister WMKC. For more on "The Zone," see WJZJ.

In 2006, WLJZ also abandoned the "Zone" simulcast in favor of a standalone Hot AC format using Waitt Radio's "AC Active" package, taking the name "Star 94.5, Today's Best Variety." This left WJZJ as the only remaining "Zone" station.

On April 1, 2008, WLJZ its format to classic country, also fed from Waitt Radio. The classic country package complemented the "Big Country Hits" contemporary-country format on sister stations WMKC and WAVC.

In April 2010, WLJZ announced on-air that its classic country format would be moving to AM sister station WCBY AM 1240, displacing the adult standards format formerly heard there. WLJZ's new format turned out to be classic rock, relaying "The Bear" format originating at 98.1 WGFN in the Traverse City area. According to the on-air announcements, the changes were due to low ratings and low advertising revenue for the classic country format.

On December 5, 2012 WLJZ changed their call letters to WOEZ.

On May 3, 2013 WOEZ changed their call letters to WJZJ.

On May 10, 2013 WJZJ changed its call sign to WYPV. This coincided with a planned station swap between Northern Star Broadcasting and Michigan Broadcasters, LLC involving 94.5 FM Mackinaw City and 106.3 FM Onaway. 94.5 FM picked up the "Patriot Voice" talk format formerly heard on 106.3, and 106.3 went to Northern Star to become WOEZ, relaying WQEZ 95.5 FM in the Traverse City area. At the same time, the "Bear" classic rock format moved to 97.7 WCHY licensed to Cheboygan.

As WKNX AM 1210

WJNL's history can be traced back as early as April 17, 1947, when the station first signed on the air as AM 1210 WKNX, owned by Lake Huron Broadcasting. The station was like many of its day, programming a full-service format of music, news, and talk. For many years, it was also a leading Top 40 hit music station in Saginaw, competing with WSAM (1400 AM) and Flint's WTAC (600 AM, now WSNL).

Among the station's history was the acquisition of a sister television station in the 1950s, and was also the radio home of 50's country music artist "Little" Jimmy Dickens. WKNX's resident "legend" would take form of University of Cincinnati graduate Robert Dyer, who joined the station in 1950 and remained a part of its staff for more than half a century.

In 1977, Lake Huron Broadcasting acquired an FM station in the Tampa Bay region of Florida -- WQYK-FM, a station that also carried a country format.

Move to Frankenmuth

The following year, in 1978, WKNX underwent a major change when it was purchased by Radiocom Limited, a company headed by Robert Dana McVay. WKNX's city of license was immediately changed to Frankenmuth, and the station's studios and offices were moved to 306 West Genesee Avenue in Frankenmuth, where it was joined by a Tuscola-licensed sister FM station, WGMZ-FM (now WWBN), which programmed beautiful music. (The WGMZ calls and format moved from 107.9 FM, which became WCRZ "Cars 108" in 1984.) By the early 1990s, WKNX-AM was programming big band music and adult standards.

Radiocom owned WKNX and leased out WGMZ (which would later become country-formatted WKMF and move its operations to Flint) until 1994, when WKNX was purchased by Detroit-based Bell Broadcasting Company in a frequency swap involving another AM station in Bay City (1250 WXOX) which had been silent since the early 90's.

Sale to Bell Broadcasting and Frequency Swap

Bell Broadcasting owned WCHB, an AM station licensed to Taylor, which operated at a daytime signal of 25,000 watts and a nighttime signal of 1,000 watts. WCHB was a talk station targeted to an African-American audience. The company's intent was to acquire WKNX's dial position at 1210 and silence it in order to provide WCHB with a 50,000 watt daytime signal.

WKNX would then acquire the license of WXOX, which had first signed on in 1956 as a station first licensed to Essexville. Over time, the 1,000 watt station, operating at 1250 kHz, began broadcasting from Bay City with its co-owned Pinconning-licensed FM sister at 100.9. By the end of the 1980s, both stations had separated ownership, ran into financial trouble and fell silent. 100.9 was spun off to a new owner in 1991, but WXOX remained silent.

Bell would then have WKNX assume WXOX's 1250 AM dial position and its abandoned three-tower directional transmitter site in Bridgeport. In January 1997, WKNX signed on at AM 1250, and AM 1210 was placed at WXOX and assigned the new call letters WJZZ, though it did not sign back on from Frankenmuth or the surrounding area. (The former WXOX calls have since been recycled for a Cleveland low-powered TV station, now WLFM-LP.)

The FCC then granted WJZZ a request to change its city of license to Kingsley, a village near Traverse City, located on the other side of Michigan. The move allowed WJZZ to increase its power from 10,000 to 50,000 watts, as it was no longer in the path of WCHB. WJZZ was later sold and later became WLDR.

From WLDR to WJML and Today

In 2001, and after a series of going on and off the air, WJZZ was sold to Roy Henderson's Fort Bend Broadcasting. The WLDR call letters changed again later that year to WWJR, and aired talk from the Michigan Talk Radio Network. But shortly after, the call letters changed back to WLDR. In 2004, the station flipped from talk to satellite-fed "Country Classics" from Waitt Radio Networks, identifying as "Real Country 1210" (not to be confused with ABC Radio's satellite-delivered format also called "Real Country"). A year later, in 2005, Henderson changed WLDR-FM to country. In 2007, Roy Henderson traded WLDR to Stone Communications for WWKK 750 of Petoskey. WLDR would become a simulcast of WJML, adopting the current WJNL call letters, while WWKK would become a simulcast of WLDR-FM, later changing their calls to WARD.

As of November 12, 2016, WJNL is no longer fully simulcasting WJML, but also sharing programs with WYPV/WHAK.