WJLS-FM (99.5
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 ...
) is a commercial
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 to
Beckley, West Virginia
Beckley is a city in Raleigh County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. The population was 17,286 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in West Virginia, ninth-most populous city in th ...
, serving Southeastern West Virginia and Southwestern Virginia with 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. The station, which utilized the call letters WBKW from 1957 to 1990, was the second FM radio station to go on the air in West Virginia, and is the oldest to still exist. Since February 2013, it and
its sister AM station have been owned by
WVRC Media, which purchased them from First Media Radio, LLC.
History
The AM station was founded in Beckley in 1939 by Joe L. Smith Jr. During World War II it became the smallest
CBS affiliate in the country.
The FM station launched as WBKW, a 4:00 pm–midnight music station, in late 1957. Both were purchased in the mid-2010s by the West Virginia Radio Corporation.
[ In 2016, WJLS moved from its original building in Beckley to occupy a floor in a building across the street.]
References
External links
*
History of WJLS
by Jeff Miller
JLS-FM
JLS-FM
Radio stations established in 1947
1947 establishments in West Virginia
Beckley, West Virginia
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