WHPI (96.5 FM) is a radio station licensed to

Farmington, Illinois Farmington is a city in Fulton County, Illinois, Fulton County & Peoria County, Illinois, United States. It is north of Canton, Illinois, Canton, west of Peoria, Illinois, Peoria, southeast of Galesburg, Illinois, Galesburg, and northeast of Mac ...

, and serving the Peoria metropolitan area. Owned by Advanced Media Partners, WHPI began airing an adult hits format as "Shuffle Radio" in September 2024.

History

The station was assigned the call sign WJPL in 1997 and received its license on February 13, 1998. It came on the air under the ownership of Ann Johnston and Mike Rea. Johnston and Rea merged their station ownership into a larger group, AAA Entertainment, in June 2000. The radio station originally went on the air in November 1997 with a rock format, then changed to "

Smooth Jazz Smooth jazz is commercially oriented crossover jazz music. Although often described as a "genre", it is a debatable and highly controversial subject in jazz music circles. As a radio format, however, smooth jazz radio became the successor to e ...

96.5" through the rest of the decade. In August 2001, WJPL flipped to

Hot AC Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, ...

as "The Point", featuring the syndicated '' Bob & Sheri'' morning show. The station added simulcast 94.3 for a short time. In June 2003, AAA Entertainment moved the format to the much stronger 105.7 and rebranded as "Mix 105.7". WWCT, known for years as "Rock 106", moved down the dial to 96.5 to become "Rock 96.5" featuring Mancow in the morning. The station struggled with several airstaff changes and variations, including an all-request format. AAA decided to sell the stations in 2006, finalizing the transfer to Independence Media in 2007. In September 2006, Independence Media began simulcasting its new CHR format on sister WPIA 98.5 as WRIA until its format change to

sports talk Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sport, sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often-low comed ...

on July 1, 2007. 96.5 had changed its callsign to WZPN six days earlier. WPIA_2018_logo-kiss

In November 2010, Independence Media Holdings sold WPIA, along with its other 3 Peoria-area stations (98.5 WPIA Eureka, 99.9

WWCT WWCT (99.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is a radio station licensed to Bartonville, Illinois. Through most of its history, the WWCT callsign was associated with Peoria's 105.7 frequency allocation; the call sign and related format was moved to 96.5 ( ...

Bartonville, and 101.1 WHPI Glasford) to Michael S. Rea Advanced Media Partners. On June 6, 2018, sister station WHPI became the primary station for "ESPN Peoria" with 96.5 as the simulcast until a new format is planned. The stations swapped call signs on June 26, 2018, with 96.5 taking the call sign WHPI and 101.1 taking the WZPN call sign. On September 5, 2020, the station dropped its sports format and resumed simulcasting WPIA's CHR format as ''98.5 Kiss FM''. On September 3, 2024, WHPI dropped its simulcast with WPIA and began stunting with all-

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...

music as ''Tay Radio'' until September 20, 2024, when it flipped to adult hits ''Shuffle Radio''.

References

External links

* {{Peoria Radio Radio stations established in 1997 HPI