WJPZ-FM - Station History

Station History

The station was established in 1974 as an alternative to the Syracuse University-owned FM station, WAER, which at that time programmed a freeform radio format and was operated by students. The call letters were selected for their similarity in sound to those of New York's WABC, at that time the nation's premier Top-40 station. WJPZ first broadcast on a frequency of 1200 kHz in the AM band with 100 milliwatts (1/10 watt) of power which had good coverage of the university campus and nearby residential areas of Syracuse. The station's AM antenna was located atop Day Hall, the same site that WJPZ (FM) currently utilizes. The station's radio format was Top 40 music, and served a dual purpose of providing programming to the student community and giving vocational training in the radio broadcasting field to students at the University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. The station later also broadcast its audio over campus television monitors through the facilities of CitrusTV, then UUTV, as well as a channel on the citywide cable television system with a blank screen. This arrangement continued for some time after WJPZ moved to the FM dial.

In 1983, after operations of WAER were taken over by the university administration and the radio format was changed to jazz and NPR News, the management of WJPZ endeavored to move the station to the FM band, where it could broadcast with more power. At 6:00 p.m. on February 2, 1985, WJPZ began broadcasting at 89.1 FM. At that time, the radio format was Top 40 with a heavy emphasis on imported and domestic dance music. The first "official" song played on the station was a 45 rpm record of "Why" by Bronski Beat. However, several other records were played several days earlier during brief transmitter test broadcasts.

Since that time, the station has experimented with playing different genres of music. The station played "modern rock" for a few years in the 1990s as 89.1 the Pulse, which began in December 1995. During the Pulse period, WJPZ stayed within a Top 40 style of a limited playlist of frequently rotated songs. In 1997, WJPZ reverted back to a CHR radio format.

On January 22, 2008, after two days of stunting, WJPZ underwent a shift toward a Rhythmic CHR radio format and adopted the slogan "The Beat Of Syracuse". Today, the station continues the "Beat of Syracuse" Top-40 format with a slightly rhythmic lean. Despite being a Rhythmic, it does have competition with WWHT, who had debuted with a Rhythmic-leaning Mainstream Top 40 direction in 1996 until it went Rhythmic Top 40 fulltime in 2011. However, in October 2012, WWHT has changed formats to a Mainstream Top 40.