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WAVJ (FM)
Radio station in Waterbury–Burlington, Vermont From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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WAVJ (103.3 FM) is a radio station licensed to Waterbury, Vermont, United States. The station serves the Burlington–Plattsburgh area with a Christian worship music from the Air1 network. WAVJ is owned by K-Love, Inc., successor to the Educational Media Foundation.[2]
WAVJ has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 2,850 watts. Its transmitter and tower is off Stoneface Road in Bolton, roughly halfway between Waterbury and Burlington. It also has a booster station in Montpelier.
The station went on the air in 1985 as a religious radio station, WTIJ; it became WGLY-FM after an ownership change a year later. It remained a commercial religious station, emphasizing contemporary Christian music starting in 1993, until its sale to Radio Broadcasting Services in 1999 led to a relaunch as soft adult contemporary station WLKC. In 2002, it began simulcasting modern adult contemporary station WXAL-FM; three years later, WLKC changed to adult hits as WWMP. A mainstream rock format replaced adult hits in 2019; in 2024, this format moved to 102.3 FM, with this station then switching to Air1 as WIXM ahead of a sale to the Educational Media Foundation, and subsequent renaming to WAVJ, in 2025.
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Masterpeace Communications first applied for a middle of the road and religious station on 103.1 MHz in Waterbury in October 1980;[3] a revised application was filed in February 1981.[4] Masterpeace's principals were Jack Hundley, Steve J. Planata, Brian Dodge,[3] Kim White, William Wittik, and Richard Tillotson;[4] Dodge, who owned 15 percent of the company, also had a 33-percent stake in WTIJ in Bellows Falls.[3] The station was granted its construction permit on December 2, 1982, and was assigned the call sign WVRS on March 24, 1983.[5]
The station changed its call sign to WTIJ—for "We Trust In Jesus"—on March 1, 1984,[5][a] and was transferred to WTIJ Broadcasting that July; it signed on February 14, 1985.[6] After another transfer to Harvest Broadcasting in September 1985,[6] Brian Dodge sold control of the company to Alexander D. McEwing for $227,000 that November, a deal completed on February 14, 1986.[6] On May 31, 1986, McEwing changed the call sign to WGLY-FM,[5] for "With God's Love to You";[7] he would also change the corporate name to Family Broadcasting.[8] The station had a predominantly religious format, airing blocks of Christian talk programs and music.[7]
By 1990, Family Broadcasting had received approval to build a low-power television station on channel 39 in Burlington, and was seeking approval to launch a radio station in southern Vermont.[7] In 1992, it acquired another religious station, WMNV (104.1 FM) in Rupert, from Peter and Mary Martin's Radio Rachel for $60,000;[9] By this point, Family Broadcasting, in addition to WGLY-FM and WMNV, owned the construction permits for WGLV in Hartford and W39AS;[10] its owners, in addition to Alexander McEwing, included Robert and Pamela Peake, Arthur McEwing, Dennis Fennell, Timothy Dodge, and the Canaan Foundation;[9] WMNV would simulcast WGLY-FM until 1997,[11] when it was sold to Capital Media Corporation for $125,000[12] to become a relay of WMYY (itself a relay of WHAZ).[11]
In 1993, WGLY-FM moved from 103.1 to 103.3 MHz;[13] its religious format also evolved to primarily contemporary Christian music.[14] The station became an affiliate of Moody Radio airing a format of Christian music, lecture, campus chapel, listener-interactive talk, and devotionals. In January 1997, WGLY-FM was granted a booster station, WGLY-FM1, in Montpelier.[15]
As a commercial religious station, half of WGLY-FM's revenues came from the sale of advertising, 20 percent came from paid programming, and the remaining 30 percent came from the listener-supported non-profit organization Christian Ministries.[7] The increasing difficulty in selling advertising led McEwing to start, through Christian Ministries, a non-profit radio network in the mid-1990s. By 1998, he was forced to put his commercial facilities up for sale to repay his investors.[8] On July 9, 1999, the call sign was changed to WDOT,[5] ahead of a $700,000 sale to Radio Broadcasting Services;[16] the WGLY call sign moved to the previous WDOT (1070 AM),[17] which Family had acquired (as WZBZ) in 1997,[18] and the two stations began a temporary simulcast.[19]
The station became WLKC on September 28, 1999,[5] as it relaunched as soft adult contemporary "Lake 103.3" and joined a cluster that included WLFE, WNCS, WSKI, and WWSR.[20] WCMK, the Bolton transmitter in Christian Ministries' network, would take on WGLY-FM's call sign and programming.[21] In June 2002, Radio Broadcasting Services owner Steven Silberberg closed WLKC's Essex Junction studios, with operations relocated to the Middlebury facilities of WXAL-FM;[22] that September, the station dropped the soft adult contemporary format and began stunting[23] with nature sounds as "Pure Vermont Radio"[24] before shifting to a simulcast of WXAL-FM's "Alice" modern adult contemporary format. The simulcast gave "Alice" a better signal in Burlington.[25]
On June 1, 2005, WLKC and WXAL-FM flipped to an adult hits format. With its "MP 103" branding and no on-air DJs, the station patterned the format as an over-the-air MP3 player.[26] The format change was followed by a call sign change to WWMP on June 13;[5] station identifications during this time ceased to mention WXAL-FM,[26] ahead of that station breaking away to become classic country station WUSX that August.[27][28] In August 2018, WWMP rebranded as "Free 103.3" with no change in format.[29]
On October 17, 2019, WWMP dropped the adult hits format for mainstream rock, branded as "Rock 103.3".[30] In April 2020, WSKI (1240 AM and 93.3 FM) began simulcasting WWMP to Montpelier (supplementing its existing booster) and Barre.[31] WWMP was also simulcast on WCAT (1390 AM) for a time prior to that station's closure in 2022; it then inherited that station's FM translator, W252CJ (98.3).[32]
On September 12, 2024, the mainstream rock format moved to WIXM (102.3 FM), which also inherited the simulcast on WSKI; WWMP then began running a loop redirecting listeners to 102.3. The two stations swapped call signs on September 18.[33] On November 19, the loop was replaced with Christian worship music programming from Air1, ahead of Northeast Digital and Wireless' planned sale of the station to the Educational Media Foundation (EMF); Air1 programming previously aired in Burlington on W235BE (94.9 FM) and the second HD Radio channel of WGLY-FM.[34] The $50,000 sale of WIXM and a translator station in Lebanon, New Hampshire, to EMF successor K-Love Inc. was formally filed in January 2025;[35] following the sale's completion, WIXM's call sign changed to WAVJ on March 21.[36]
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Notes
- The previous WTIJ in Bellows Falls had been sold and renamed WBFL in 1983.[6]
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