WLEE (1480 AM)
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WLEE (1480 AM) was a radio station in
Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...
, United States. Last owned by Gilcom Corporation of Virginia, the station broadcast an
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 ...
format before closing. It broadcast from October 1, 1945, to December 31, 1988. The frequency was shared with WBBL, which primarily served to broadcast the services of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church; for its entire history, WBBL programs were broadcast on WLEE's transmitter. Established by Thomas Garland Tinsley, the station emerged as one of Richmond's most popular radio stations and as its leading
Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...
station from the 1960s through the mid-1970s. However, as music listening shifted to the FM band, its audience fell, and by the time it was closed, it had not made money in a decade. Delays in approval for a reconfigured transmitter setup at its site off Broad Street in Richmond caused a potential buyer to walk away and led to the decision to shut it down.


Early years

In June 1944, two complementary applications were filed at 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 ...
(FCC). One was by Thomas Garland Tinsley, Jr., a Richmond native who had been working for station
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in
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seeking to build a new radio station at 1240 kHz. The other was by Grace Covenant, owner of WBBL, which sought to reduce its allotted hours to 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and 8 to 9 p.m. on Sundays if the new station license were awarded. Tinsley had arranged a 10-year lease for WBBL's equipment. The applications were granted by the FCC on December 19, 1944, but for 1450 kHz with 250 watts. ( Guide to reading History Cards) While Tinsley had initially been denied permission to erect a transmission tower on Colorado Avenue, this was later approved. So, too, was a network affiliation; the new WLEE would debut as an affiliate of the
Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Golden Age of Radio, ...
, replacing
WRNL WRNL (910 AM, "910 AM 105.1 FM The Fan") is a commercial radio station licensed to Richmond, Virginia. WRNL features a sports radio format and is owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. The studios, offices and transmitter are all co-located jus ...
(910 AM) in the network. It also affiliated with the Associated Broadcasting Corporation, a new network that had gone into service in September 1945. (The Associated network became known as the Associated Broadcasting System in December 1945 as a result of an out-of-court settlement with the
American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American Commercial broadcasting, commercial broadcast Television broadcaster, television and radio Radio network, network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division ...
.) Tinsley selected the call letters to give the station a "Southern sound"; the early studio featured a portrait of
Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a general officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was appointed the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate ...
. WLEE began broadcasting on October 1, 1945, with a dedication ceremony at the Mosque Auditorium. Studios were in the Broad-Grace Arcade downtown. WBBL also began to radiate from the new transmission facility. Tinsley also expanded into television in 1955 when he started WXEX-TV in nearby Petersburg. WXEX-TV secured
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliation, and so too did WLEE, bringing its programming back to local radio after it cut ties with WMBG and WTVR in the run-up to the television station's launch. From 1948 to 1957, WLEE also simulcast on the FM band at 102.9 MHz.


Rock and roll years

In 1958, Pat Cohen, the owner of a chain of record stores, suggested to longtime WLEE general manager Harvey Hudson that he start playing
rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...
music due to its popularity. Hudson agreed, and the station and popular personalities soon began a ratings rise. The popular music; personalities such as Hudson and Lud Sterling; a healthy dose of stunts and promotions; a large local news team; and a nighttime
rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...
show, ''Music After Hours'', helped fuel the station's rise in the radio ratings to top even longtime juggernaut WRVA. (This documentary does have an incorrect sign-on date for this station.) It was the first station in Richmond to play either rhythm and blues or
the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
. In addition to the station's recognized local personalities, one went on to a career outside of radio broadcasting. Wrestling promoter and announcer
Rich Landrum Richard Eugene Landrum (March 31, 1946 – August 14, 2023) was an American radio and television broadcaster, who was best known for hosting the syndicated program ''World Wide Wrestling'' from late 1978 to early 1982. He started his broadcasting ...
also worked at WLEE, lying about his age to start at the age of 15. In 1967, Tinsley sold WLEE and WXEX-TV to
Nationwide Communications Nationwide Communications Inc., originally known as Peoples Broadcasting Corporation, was a media subsidiary of the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, Nationwide Insurance Company, which operated from 1946 until 1997. Based in Columbus, Ohio, ...
for $7.15 million. Nationwide initially pursued moving WXEX-TV's main studio from Petersburg to the WLEE studio site, but this was met with criticism from civic officials in the Petersburg area and shelved. In 1959, WLEE dropped NBC to return to Mutual.


Twilight years

The rise of FM exacted a toll on what was one of the market's leading stations, one that WLEE general manager Hudson disregarded when a new hit radio station,
WRVQ WRVQ (94.5 FM "Q94") is a commercial radio station licensed to Richmond, Virginia, and serving Central Virginia. WRVQ is owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. It airs a contemporary hit radio format. The syndicated Elvis Duran show from forme ...
(94.5 FM), launched in 1972. In a profile on radio competition in the weekly ''Richmond Mercury'', he was quoted as saying, "Stereo? What's stereo? Most people don't turn the volume up loud enough to hear the difference between AM and FM stereo." In 1975, the station posted a total market rating of 11.5, far behind WRVA and just edged out by easy listening station WEZS; that figure had slipped to a 4.5 by the end of the decade, while WRVQ rose to second. The station subtly shifted its music mix up in age to an
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 ...
format and began calling itself "Richmond Radio". At the start of 1982, WLEE converted from a contemporary format to the syndicated
Music of Your Life Music of Your Life is an American syndicated music radio format featuring adult standards music. First created by recording executive Al Ham in 1978, the format achieved popularity in the 1980s among AM radio stations in the United States and Ca ...
oldies format. In November 1983, the FCC approved the sale of WLEE from Nationwide to the Gilcom Corporation of Virginia for $950,000. The head of Gilcom, Edward T. Giller, owned stations in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Hudson, who would also serve as a founding owner of
TVX Broadcast Group TVX Broadcast Group was an American media company that owned a group of mostly UHF television stations during the 1980s and early 1990s. TVX was established by local investors as the Television Corporation of Virginia, which built WTVZ-TV in ...
, returned to do a morning show for the standards-formatted station from 1984 to 1987.


End of operations

On December 29, 1988, Gilcom announced it would shut the station down on December 31 of that year and surrender the license to the FCC. While the station had not made money for a decade, the proximate cause was the failure of a plan to improve WLEE's nighttime broadcast facility. In 1984, Gilcom sold half of the transmitter site property to be developed into a new
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hotel. The hotel property occupied land on which two of the four towers in the array sat. Studios were moved to a site on Deep Rock Road. In late 1985, Gilcom had filed to build two new towers at 6200 West Broad Street, but it was forced to redo the plan for a three-tower array. The three-tower radiation pattern only covered 70 percent of the area, prompting the commission to withhold approval. The delay in obtaining FCC approval for a construction permit caused a potential buyer to walk away from the station, and even though the permit came in November 1988, it was too late to save the station. Because WBBL was dependent on WLEE's facilities to broadcast, Grace Covenant found itself in the position of holding a license without a transmission facility. For the first two Sundays of 1989, WBBL turned on WLEE's transmitter two more times to air services; it then began to rent time from WTVR (1380 AM) and other stations. WBBL never returned to the air and was deleted on March 14, 1994, marking the definitive end of the oldest station in Richmond and the second-oldest in Virginia.


Reuse of the WLEE call sign in Richmond

The WLEE call letters were not gone for long in Richmond. At 1320 kHz, WANI, which had gone off the air earlier in 1988, was resurrected as a "new" WLEE on February 1, 1989, with Gilcom relinquishing the call letters and studio facilities to the new venture while burying the 1480 frequency with the call sign WJRW. The first incarnation of WLEE at 1320 lasted just three months due to financial problems, but after being sold, the call letters and standards format returned in September. From 1995 to 1997, WLEE-FM (now
WKLR WKLR (96.5 FM) is a classic rock formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Fort Gregg-Adams, Virginia, serving Richmond and Petersburg in Virginia. WKLR is owned and operated by SummitMedia. The station's studios and offices are located w ...
) operated at 96.5 MHz as part of a
local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one corporation, company agrees to operate a radio station, radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it ...
between WLEE and the FM station's owner, airing a 1970s-based classic hits format. The call letters moved from 1320 (now WBTL) to 990 kHz in 1999 in a swap with WVNZ, previously used on 990. That station became WREJ in 2016 after being sold and changing formats. The 1480 frequency would be recycled 15 years later for a new station,
WTOX WTOX (1480 AM broadcasting, AM) is a sports gambling formatted Broadcasting, broadcast radio station licensed to Bensley, Virginia, serving Metro Richmond, Virginia, Richmond. WTOX is owned and operated by Michael Mazursky, through licensee Mobil ...
.


References

{{Richmond Radio 1945 establishments in Virginia 1988 disestablishments in Virginia Radio stations established in 1945 Radio stations disestablished in 1988 Defunct radio stations in the United States LEE (1480 AM) LEE (1480 AM)