WWZY

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WWZY ("107.1 The Boss") is a classic rock-formatted radio station licensed to Long Branch, New Jersey, and serving the Northern Jersey Shore. It is owned by Press Communications and is simulcast on co-owned 99.7 WBHX in Tuckerton, New Jersey. The studios and offices are on West Bangs Avenue in Neptune City, New Jersey.

WWZY is a Class A station. It has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 5,000 watts. The transmitter tower is on Broadway at Memorial Parkway in Long Branch.^[4]

History[edit]

1960–1981[edit]

The station signed on the air on June 1, 1960; 63 years ago (June 1, 1960).^[5][1] The original call sign was WRLB, which stood for "Radio Long Branch".^[6] At the time, the station's owner was afforded the possibility of broadcasting with 50,000 watts, but he declined, thinking that FM radio had limited potential. Therefore, the station signed on with 3,000 watts from a tower located in Long Branch.

The studios were located adjacent to the tower. WWZY still uses the tower site, although the studios are now in Neptune City. When the Long Branch 107.1 did not utilize 50,000 watts, the Federal Communications Commission subsequently assigned 107.1 to several more communities around New York City. One was Briarcliff Manor, New York (in Westchester County), another was Belvidere, New Jersey (near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania), and a third was Hampton Bays, New York (on Eastern Long Island). Having four stations near each other, all broadcasting on 107.1 MHz, caused interference for some listeners.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, WRLB had a full-service format. It aired middle of the road (MOR) music, high school sports and local news. An Italian music program aired on Sunday. Competition was mainly from the radio stations owned by the Asbury Park Press, 1340 AM WJLK and 94.3 WJLK-FM. Those stations simulcast a mix of popular music and local news.

In 1968, WRLB revamped its programming. It continued to play MOR music and news from 6 a.m. until 12 a.m. At midnight, it switched to progressive rock music hosted and pioneered by Charlie Roberts. He was the first disk jockey in New Jersey to play progressive rock on a commercial FM radio station. The program was called "The Subway." This was an homage to Dick Summer at WBZ in Boston who was Roberts' mentor when he was attending Boston University. His first song selection was "Road Runner" by Junior Walker & the All Stars. On occasion, Roberts would have live in-studio guests including the progressive rock band Vanilla Fudge. His weather forecaster and sidekick was "Tommy Metro" who was also the station's chief engineer, Tom Tcimpidis.

1981-1996[edit]

In 1981, WRLB was sold to Monmouth Broadcasting and became Top 40 - CHR. Its new call letters were WWUU (known on-air as "U 107"). The station relied on broadcast automation and only had a few live DJs. The station was sold again to Jonathan and Elizabeth Hoffman (under the similar name "Mammoth Broadcasting"). In 1982, it became WMJY (Y-107), featuring live local DJs playing the hits. Liners for the rechristened station highlighted the station's local presence by touting "The New Live Y-107". Radio personality Sean "Hollywood" Hamilton spent a short time as the afternoon drive time host at Y-107 in early 1982 before moving on to Z-100 in New York City.

At first, Y-107 maintained U 107's CHR format. But within a few years, Y-107 was an album rock station, using the slogan "Rock Hits Home". It had special programming on Sundays spotlighting new-age music, blues, psychedelic music, and The Beatles. Disc jockeys at Y-107 in its rock days included John Ford, Linda Jordan, T.J. Brustowicz, Bobbi Stewart, Garrick Hart, Willobee (later Program Director/Operations Manager & afternoon host at KVNV - NV89 in Reno, Nevada).^[7] Other DJs included Lauren Pressley, Jason Watt and Thom Morrera, who later was a DJ at New York City rock station WNEW-FM. Ian Punnett (using the name Ian Case) hosted a morning show that combined music and comedy bits. Newscasters included Doug Doyle, Rhonda Schaffler (later of CNN) and Matt Ward. The music gradually shifted to classic rock.

In late 1988, Mammoth sold WMJY to K&K Broadcasting. At the time of its purchase, K&K also owned two radio stations in Erie, Pennsylvania. Word had gotten out that a format change was in the works. On January 19, 1989, mention had been made on the air of a rally to be held the following afternoon at the station's studios in downtown Long Branch to save Y-107's rock format. In the early morning hours of January 20, 1989, K&K sent a security guard to remove overnight announcer T.J. Brustowicz from the premises and padlock the doors. The entire staff was fired (many reading of their job loss in the newspaper that morning), though some announcers and support personnel were eventually hired back. K&K then temporarily instituted a satellite-driven heavy metal rock format called "Z Rock" based in Dallas. Many of WMJY's listeners objected to the firing of the local DJs and the hard-rock format. They petitioned K&K to change it back to classic rock. The new owners refused.

In May 1989, WMJY changed to a local, soft adult contemporary format called "SeaView 107 FM." The new format featured soft-rock artists (Elton John, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Carole King) as well as some pop hits from the 1960s and 1970s. The call letters changed to WZVU in June 1989 to reflect the SeaView name.

WZVU "SeaView 107" was a success in the Monmouth-Ocean ratings, beating longtime rival 94.3 WJLK-FM within the first year. The station began to add more 1960s and 70s titles to the playlist, featuring "all-oldies weekends." The original General Manager in 1989 for WZVU was Gary Spurgeon with General Sales Manager Don Dalesio and Program Director Brad Kelly.

Unfortunately, WZVU's corporate parent, K&K Broadcasting began to encounter financial problems. In 1992, all of the local DJs were terminated, and the station switched to a satellite-delivered oldies format. Curiously, this was the same satellite format that was aired on WJLK 1310 AM in Asbury Park. By this time, the Asbury Park Press had sold WJLK-AM-FM to D&F Broadcasting.

In early 1994, General Manager Jim Davis (former Top 40 disc jockey "Big Bob" Evans on WOR-FM in New York) launched "Oldies 107.1." Bob Steele was the program director. Airstaff included Rocky D, Jersey Judi Franco, Big Joe Henry, Tommy Dean, Bobby Ryan, Captain Jack Aponte, Mark Lee and Ed Healy. Innovative specialty shows were on weekends such as All Request Radio and the Sunday Night Train with Tommy Dean and Bobby Ryan.

1996–2003[edit]

In mid-1996 the station was sold to Big City Radio. On December 5, 1996, the station became part of the company's trimulcast (and eventual quadcast) with other 107.1 stations, WRGX in Briarcliff Manor, New York (Westchester County) and WWHB Hampton Bays, New York (Eastern Long Island). WZVU and the other two multicast stations switched formats to country music. The stations were known as "New Country Y-107."^[8] Call letters of the Long Branch station were changed to WWZY. Later, WRNJ-FM the 107.1 in Belvidere, New Jersey was added to make Y-107 a four-station "quadcast." Jim Kerr, longtime morning host on New York City stations 95.5 WPLJ and WAXQ Q104.3, was heard on the quadcast in mornings.

On May 7, 2002, the "Y-107" quadcast ended the country format. After a day of stunting with construction sounds, the quadcast flipped to a Spanish-language tropical music format as "Rumba 107".^[9] The format was ill-suited to the quadcast suburban signals, which mostly covered areas of the New York metropolitan area with a small Hispanic population. So the WWZY transmitter was moved to a tower in the Belford section of Middletown Township, in an attempt to improve its coverage of New York City. At the end of the year, Big City Radio filed for bankruptcy. The company sold the quadcast to Nassau Broadcasting, which broke up the quadcast and sold off the individual stations.

2003–2013[edit]

WWZY was then purchased by the New Jersey-based Press Communications LLC. The transmitter was moved back to the Long Branch tower. The station became "The Breeze" on June 30, 2003, and started simulcasting on WBHX 99.7 FM in Tuckerton, New Jersey.

The adult contemporary format known as "The Breeze" continued for ten years.^[10][11][12] The WBHX transmitter is located on Long Beach Island in the town of Beach Haven, New Jersey. The Breeze was also played most of the day in Southern Ocean County on WCAT-TV, the public-access television cable TV channel based at Pinelands Regional High School.

2013–present[edit]

WWZY kept the Breeze branding until the fall of 2013 when it changed to 107.1 FM "A Music Radio Station." On July 1, 2014, 107.1 and 99.7 rebranded as Fun 107.1, shifting to a Hot AC format. The station featured the morning show known as "Pork Roll & Eggs," with other DJs Chelsea, Tom Farinaro, and Ali. It was played contemporary artists such as Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, Meghan Trainor, Ariana Grande, and One Direction. "107.1 FM" ended the WBHX simulcast on November 1, 2015.

On March 1, 2017, WWZY began teasing a "Big Announcement" on air and on the station's Facebook page. It was hinted to occur the following Friday, March 3rd, at 5PM.^[13] At that time, after playing "Bye Bye Bye" by *Nsync, General Manager Don Dalesio and PD Jeff Rafter launched "107.1 The Boss". Popular musician from the Jersey Shore, Bruce Springsteen, is often called "The Boss." The station once again revived the simulcast on WBHX, giving the format almost full market coverage over Monmouth and Ocean County. The only mention of 99.7 is in the top-of-the-hour station identification.

The first song on The Boss was "We Will Rock You" by Queen.^[14][15] On March 3, 2017, the station again began to be simulcast on 99.7 WBHX. The wake-up show is known as "Robby and Rochelle in the Morning."^[16] Robbie and Rochelle Bridges are a married couple. He also serves as vice president of programming.

Former logo[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official website
• WWZY in the FCC FM station database
• WWZY in Nielsen Audio's FM station database