WLCO (1530 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a contemporary Christian format, as an affiliate of Smile FM. Licensed to

Lapeer, Michigan Lapeer ( ') is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is the county seat of Lapeer County. As of the 2020 census, the city population was . Most of the city was incorporated from land that was formerly in Lapeer Township, though portions were ...

, it first began broadcasting under the WTHM call sign in 1962. Until December 2019, it broadcast 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 using Westwood One's Real Country, which combines classic country favorites with select current titles. Prior to that, as WLSP, the station had aired satellite-fed

adult standards Adult standards (also sometimes known as the nostalgia or Big Band format) is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations. Adult standards started in the 1950s and is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly tho ...

from ABC ( Timeless Classics), and, prior to that, Talk and Sports formats. WTHM first went on the air November 16, 1962, adding an FM sister station on 103.1 in 1968. The WTHM call letters are derived from THuMb indicating that the signal covers

the Thumb The Thumb is a region and a peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan, so named because the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Lower Peninsula is shaped like a mitten. The Thumb area is generally considered to be in the Central Michigan region, east of t ...

region of Michigan. WTHM-AM/FM was a full-service station featuring MOR/

adult contemporary 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 ...

music. Later on the call sign on both AM and FM were switched to WDEY; the music format remained AC. WDEY-AM/FM had been owned for many years by James Sommerville, who sold both to Covenant Communications in 1991. WDEY switched to a country format as "Country Gold" with the WWGZ calls in the early 1990s, before adopting an all-sports format and the new call sign WLSP in 1994. Both WLSP and WRXF-FM were sold in December 2001 to Regent Communications (now

Townsquare Media Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wit ...

) for $1.3 million. Both stations then moved from their longtime location at 286 West Nepessing Street in Lapeer to join their new Regent affiliate stations at G-3338 East Bristol Road in the Flint suburb of Burton. WLSP dropped sports in 2002 for a talk format featuring programming from the

Michigan Talk Radio Network Michigan ( ) is a peninsular state in the Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, Indiana and Illinois to the southwest, Ohio t ...

, before switching to

as "Unforgettable 1530" (using ABC Radio's " Stardust" format) in January 2004. The station adopted the "Real Country" format and WLCO calls on March 1, 2007. On December 2, 2019, WLCO fell silent due to an equipment failure at the station's transmitter site. It returned to the air by September 20, 2020, simulcasting the classic rock format of its then sister station WQUS. WLCO operates from local sunrise to local sunset to protect

Clear-channel station A clear-channel station is a North American AM radio station that has the highest level of protection from interference from other stations, particularly from nighttime skywave signals. This classification exists to ensure the viability of cross ...

WCKY in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

. Effective March 3, 2022, Townsquare Media sold WLCO to Smile FM for $172,500.

References

Michiguide.com - WLCO History

External links

1962 establishments in Michigan LCO LCO LCO Radio stations established in 1962 LCO {{Michigan-radio-station-stub