WBZR-FM (105.9 FM, "Hot Country 105.9") is an American

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

licensed A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

to serve

Atmore, Alabama Atmore is a city in Escambia County, Alabama, United States. The population was 8,391 at the 2020 census. It was incorporated on May 9, 1907. The Atmore Commercial Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Th ...

. The station, which began regular broadcast operations in 1991, is currently owned and operated by Larry and Earnest White, through licensee Tri-County Broadcasting Inc.

Programming

WBZR-FM broadcasts a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

format specializing in country music from the 1970s and 1980s, with a few songs from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1990s. WBZR-FM programming is available on the web via

streaming audio Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downloadi ...

to listeners around the world. The majority of WBZR-FM's daytime programming was normally simulcast on its

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

, the then- WBZR (1000 AM). The AM station's transmitter was damaged by lightning on August 16, 2012, and that station is temporarily

dark Darkness is the condition resulting from a lack of illumination, or an absence of visible light. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance because the hue-sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are ...

History

Launch

This station received its original

construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...

for a new 3,700

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

FM station broadcasting at 105.9

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

from the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

on December 7,

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

. The new station was assigned the call letters WYDH by the FCC on February 1, 1991. WYDH received its license to cover from the FCC on August 7, 1991. In July 1992, original owner Alabama Native American Broadcasting, reached an agreement to sell this station to PCI Communications, Inc. Alabama Native American Broadcasting was a partnership between family members Randy Dale Gehman, Martin Eby Gehman, Vernie L. Gehman, Martin Gerald Gehman, and David Wayne Gehman. The deal was approved by the FCC on August 14, 1992. In October 1994, PCI Communications, Inc., agreed to sell this station to Creek Indian Enterprises. The deal was approved by the FCC on November 15, 1994, and the transaction was consummated on the same day. In December 1997, Creek Indian Enterprises reached an agreement to sell this station to Southern Media Communications, Inc. The deal was approved by the FCC on March 4, 1998, and the transaction was consummated on May 22, 1998.

Changing signs

The station applied for a change in callsigns and was assigned WDXZ by the FCC on April 26, 2004. Less than six months later, on October 4, 2004, the station's call letters were changed again, this time to WNSI-FM. In March 2006, parent company Great American Radio Network, Inc. (Walter Bowen, president) announced an agreement to sell WNSI-FM along with sister stations WNSI and WBCA to Gulf Coast Broadcasting Inc. (R. Lee Hagan, president) for a reported combined sale price of $550,001. At the time of the announcement, WNSI aired a sports/talk radio format. The deal was dismissed at the request of the applicants on May 17, 2006, and the transaction was never consummated so the license remained with Great American Radio Network Inc.

Controversy

Station owner Walter Bowen made national headlines in 2008 due to a dispute over music licensing with the

performance rights organization A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works ''publicly'' in lo ...

known as the

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

. The WNSI and WNSI-FM combo did not itself play music—the clips at issue were played during the syndicated ''Dave Ramsey Show''—and hadn't since a June 2004 switch from

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...

. Bowen, upset by ASCAP's refusal to reduce his licensing fee from about $80 per month to the talk radio rate of $17 per month, stopped paying the fee altogether. Citing the airing of two song clips in September 2006 on the Ramsey program, ASCAP sued Bowen's Great American Radio Network, Inc., for damages. Bowen's attorneys and ASCAP reached a $15,000 settlement with a payment plan but Bowen refused to pay, calling the settlement "legal extortion".

Acquisition by Gulf Coast Broadcasting

In March 2010, the broadcast license for WNSI-FM was involuntarily transferred from Southern Media Communications, Inc., to Lonnie L. Mixon, acting as the Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee. The station was assigned new call letters WBZR-FM by the FCC on May 4, 2010. In July 2010, the trustee reached an agreement to sell WBZR-FM to Gulf Coast Broadcasting Company, Inc., for $220,000 in settlement of the owner's debts. This bankruptcy sale, along with

WBZR, for a combined price of $410,000 is at a significantly reduced from the March 2006 agreement with Gulf Coast for $550,001. The sale was formally consummated on September 27, 2010., following Bowen's conviction for child sex abuse. On November 2, 2010, the station received its license to cover changes completed in 2008 after full repairs to its broadcasting equipment damaged by

Hurricane Ivan Hurricane Ivan was a large, long-lived, and devastating tropical cyclone that caused widespread damage in the Caribbean and United States. The ninth named storm, the sixth hurricane, and the fourth major hurricane of the active 2004 Atlantic h ...

in 2004.

Acquisition by Tri-County Broadcasting Inc.

On January 28, 2013, an Application was filed with the Federal Communications Commission seeking consent to the Assignment of Broadcast Licenses of Radio Stations WBZR, Robertsdale, Alabama, and WBZR-FM, Atmore, Alabama, from Gulf Coast Broadcasting, Inc., to 21st Century Broadcasting, Inc. While this transaction was never consummated, WBZR-FM's license was assigned to Larry and Earnest White's Tri-County Broadcasting Inc. effective November 25, 2014, at a purchase price of $140,000.

References

External links

* {{Country Radio Stations in Alabama BZR-FM Classic country radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1991 Escambia County, Alabama