WJZZ RECALLED ON MOTOR CITY RADIO FLASHBACKS
WJZZ-FM 105.9 * ROSETTA HINES * June 6, 1996 | February 1, 1996
NEW! Rosetta Hines WJZZ aircheck date(s) Thursday, June 5, 1996 and February 1, 1996
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* THE JIM FELICIANO COLLECTION *
Day: October 8, 2014
FIVE YEARS THIS WEEK: WHEN ‘SMOOTH JAZZ’ DETROIT SIGNED OFF 98.7
Smooth Jazz WVMV-FM Faded Into Detroit Radio History, This Week, Five Years Ago
October 02, 2009 2:48 PM
Smooth Jazz Radio Station WVMV 98.7 Announcing Format Switch
By Bill Shea | Crain’s Detroit Business
DETROIT — Detroit’s self-billed smooth jazz radio station WVMV 98.7 is expected to announce a format switch today. (MCRFB: Play audio bar below).
The smooth jazz format is apparently moving to an HD2 channel, but it’s not yet clear what the terrestrial broadcast format will be.
Station executives would lease only limited information, and said an on-air announcement is coming at 4 p.m. today.
Deb Kenyon, CBS Radio’s senior vice president and market manager for its Detroit stations, issued a statement: “98.7 Smooth Jazz is moving to a new home. New media and new technologies have given us the chance to still keep this programming on the air. We know that Smooth Jazz is a favorite station for many people and we’re glad to say we aren’t going away, we’re just moving,” she wrote.
The station was ranked 11th in the Detroit market in listenership by Washington D.C.-based audience measurement service Arbitron. The ratings, the most recent available, are for Monday through Sunday, 6 a.m. to midnight, for June, July and August.
CBS Radio also owns WWJ 950 AM (news talk), WXYT 97.1 FM/1270 AM (news talk), WOMC 104.3 FM (oldies) and WYCD 99.5 FM (country) locally.
WVMV station went on the air in 1961 as WBFG broadcasting religious programs. In 1980, it became WLLZ, a rock station under the name “Detroit Wheels.”
Westinghouse bought the station in 1989, and it became a CBS property when the network bought Westinghouse in 1995. That year it became a modern rock station.
Later that year, it switched to smooth jazz-new adult contemporary and switched to the WVMV call letters in early 1996. END
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Source: Crain’s Detroit Business October 2, 2009
WVMV SIGN OFF * Steve Stryker Asst. PD * OCTOBER 2, 2009 [5:00 P.M.]
SMOOTH JAZZ DETROIT: THE SOUND OF SADE V98.7 FM
SADE * Smooth Operator (Smooth Jazz Version) * ‘DIAMOND LIFE’ LP (PORTRAIT 1985)
A MCRFB Note: “Smooth Operator,” by Sade, would be the very last song WVMV V98.7 would play signing off their “Smooth Jazz” format, just after 5:00 p.m., Friday, October 2, 2009. “Smooth Operator” was also the very first song WVMV played having signed-on with their new station format in 1996.
