WBEN-FM - History

History

The station was founded as WFLN by civic leaders as a "fine arts" station, and first went on the air in March 1949 with a classical music format. The station was sold in 1988 to Marlin Broadcasting. The new ownership added more news elements, sports reports, and traffic reports. From 1995 to 1997, it was bought and sold five more times, and each time cutbacks were made and the station adopted a more commercial sound.

Finally, in September 1997, when the station was bought by its current owner, Greater Media, an executive from that company announced that the station's classical recordings would be sold to WRTI (Temple University's radio station); the stated rationale was that classical music is best presented in a non-commercial format. On September 5, at 3 PM, the station immediately became WXXM, "Max 95.7", playing "adult modern rock" similar to, but slightly softer than, the station then known as Y 100. The first song it played in its new format was Sheryl Crow's "A Change Would Do You Good." The station reported as a hot adult contemporary station to trade publications. The format didn't last long; on May 13, 1999, in the middle of Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery", the station became WEJM "Jammin' Gold", playing a blend of urban oldies from the '60s to the '80s, disco, classic dance tunes, and some '70s pop hits.

This format also did not last long; on June 15, 2001, WEJM became WMWX, "Mix 95.7", another incarnation of Hot AC. At some points, the station leaned toward adult modern rock; at other times, toward adult contemporary. Mostly, though, the station was a mainstream Hot AC outlet similar to WPLJ in New York City. The station continued to be plagued by mediocre ratings.

Meanwhile, Infinity/CBS Radio was in the process of flipping some of its FM stations to a broad-based adult rock and pop format known as Jack FM, with its famous moniker of "We play what we want!!" and playlists of up to two thousand songs. Stations that adopted the format were mostly underperformers at the time of the format change, but a few were decently rated oldies stations.

With rumors circulating that there were plans to switch WOGL to such a format, on March 21, 2005, the station became "95.7 Ben FM", with a format they describe as "playing anything we feel like." "Mix" ended with "Better Man" by Pearl Jam. The call letters were finally changed to WBEN-FM on May 9, 2005. This format is very similar to the "Jack FM" stations in terms of playlist size and the character of the songs played (format and decade of original release).