WUSL
Encyclopedia
WUSL, known as "Power 99 FM", is a mainstream urban radio station, owned by Clear Channel Communications
and licensed
to Philadelphia. WUSL broadcasts from a class B signal with an effective radiated power (ERP)
of 27,000 watts (27 kilowatts (kW)) on the 98.9 megahertz (MHz) frequency from a tower located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia
.
. The station was cross-promoted with the newspaper and featured an easy listening
format. At one point, WPBS was called "Velvet Stereo".
In 1976, the newspaper sold the station to LIN Broadcasting which also owned WFIL 560 at the time. Calls changed to WUSL "US-1" and Program Director Jim Nettleton instituted a Soft Adult Contemporary format mixed with standards
which had crossed over to the 1960s/1970's pop charts (i.e. Engelbert Humperdinck, Barbra Streisand, etc.). The morning newsman at this time was Jim Gearhart, who is now on NJ 101.5.
On July 3, 1981, the station switched to a "3-in-a-row" country music
format as "Continuous Country 99 FM". Two months later, co-owned WFIL-AM switched to a more personality and information-leaning country station. Realizing that they were splitting their own audience, WUSL signed off the country format in the early hours of October 9, 1982. The last country song played was "Get Into Reggae, Cowboy" by The Bellamy Brothers.
The next day, at 6AM, the station became Urban Contemporary
as "Kiss 99" (copying New York's WRKS "Kiss FM"). The station even applied for new calls WPKS "Philadelphia's Kiss", however the owners of 100.3 in Media PA, WKSZ (see below), who at the time hadn't put their station on the air yet, said they were signing on as "Kiss 100" and had already copyrighted the name, and had even started legal action against WUSL.
At this time, LIN Broadcasting was the owner of WUSL.
So, WUSL backed off, dropped the "Kiss" name and was simply "99 FM" for a few weeks, until they began using the name "Power 99FM". Within months, they had surpassed WDAS-FM
in the ratings, and other stations around the country began using the "Power" brandname. WUSL continues to be the dominant Urban leader in Philadelphia today.
EZ Communications would Purshase WUSL & WIOQ
from LIN Broadcasting. EZ Communications was attempting to Merge with American Radio Systems of Boston at this time and would Swap its 2 Philly Stations with Evergreen Media's Charlotte, N.C. Stations.
EZ will exchange its Philadelphia stations, WIOQ-FM and WUSL-FM, plus $10 million for Evergreen's four FM and two AM stations in Charlotte: WPEG-FM; WBAV AM/FM; WNKS-FM; WRFX-FM and WFNZ-AM.
In 1995, when WDAS came under common ownership when Evergreen Media would purshase them, WUSL relinquished its urban format to the current mainstream approach.
One of the most famous programs to ever air on WUSL is the Carter & Sanborn Morning Show, which was cohosted both Brian Carter and Dave Sanborn. The show featured a cast of off-beat characters, all voiced by Sanborn, including wise-cracking horoscope
reader Horace, the Taurus and fall down drunk blues
singer Lunchmeat Mumford . Horace became such a popular character that many listeners had mini urban legends circulating that he was a relative or friend from school or the neighborhood, not realizing he was Sanborn. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the show was a main draw in Philadelphia among younger members of both demographics. Bill Simpson, who would later host a nighttime show on both incarnations of Smooth Jazz WJJZ (once at 106.1
and again at 97.5), used the alias Dave Sanborn on the show, which often created confusion with the well-known jazz saxophonist David Sanborn
, especially among those who were not regular listeners. The show was briefly revived in 2005 on WDAS, after that station dropped Tom Joyner
from its schedule. Some of the other personalities in the 1980s were Fred Buggs who left the station in 1986 and went to WRKS Kiss FM in New York City
, Jo Jo Davis, Mike Jackson,(not to be confused with singer Michael Jackson
) B.J in the morning before Carter & Sanborn started, Barbara Summers, and Don Juan Banks who is still with the station today.
From 1991 to 1998, Power 99 aired the groundbreaking hip hop show Radioactive hosted by Colby Colb, also on the show was DJ Ran, Cosmic Kev and Rob Laid Back Black. Colby Colb started as an intern at the station and following the success of Radioactive went on to host nights (6p-10p), Mornings with Wendy Williams and Dee Lee (The Dream Team)
WUSL was the home of the controversial Star and Buc Wild Morning Show from late 2005 to May 2006. Today it is home of Miss Jones- Jonesy in the morning, Shamara- "The Midday Princess, T-Roy in the Afternoon & The Hot Boyz with Mikey Dredd and Uncle O at night. Power 99 also has Tazz Daddy, who is their Director of Social Media/Web Personality. A Philly native, he's best known for taking the Rickey Smiley Morning show into syndication. DJ Diamond Kuts, who is Nicki Minaj's Tour DJ is also on staff as a personality/mixer, when she's not touring. Star and Buc Wild have since returned to the airwaves, this time as a local based morning show on WPHI.
Power 99 FM is also home to The Come Up Show on Friday's from 10pm - 2am , hosted by DJ Cosmic Kev.
and public affairs programming, a hallmark of which was their Sunday morning programming. From its inception as Power 99, Sunday morning was dedicated to two public affairs shows: Sunday Morning Live, hosted by longtime news anchor Loraine Ballard Morrillhttp://www.blondellonline.com/wmad/pages/wmadballardmorrillhtml.htm and later "Empower Half Hour" with Lehronda Upshurhttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/lehronda-upshur/4/920/99. Morrill and Upshur continue to host shows and broadcast news and traffic on other Clear Channel stations (WDAS
, WISX
and WIOQ
) as programming changes have forced public affairs shows from Power 99 to those other stations.
for public service awarded by the National Association of Broadcasters
. Winners were honored at the Radio Luncheon on April 17, 2007, during the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nevada
.
FORMER JOCKS
Wendy Williams,
Jo Jo Davis,
Q Deezy,
Colby Colb,
Dee Lee,
Carter and Sandborn,
BJ in the Morning,
Lady B,
DC Todd,
Coka,
Neke At Night,
DJ Ran,
Stanley T,
Jah T,
DJ Cool C,
Don Mystique Mack,
Tony Richards,
Golden Girl,
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...
and licensed
City of license
A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator....
to Philadelphia. WUSL broadcasts from a class B signal with an effective radiated power (ERP)
Effective radiated power
In radio telecommunications, effective radiated power or equivalent radiated power is a standardized theoretical measurement of radio frequency energy using the SI unit watts, and is determined by subtracting system losses and adding system gains...
of 27,000 watts (27 kilowatts (kW)) on the 98.9 megahertz (MHz) frequency from a tower located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
History
In 1961 the 98.9 frequency was signed on as WPBS "Philadelphia's Bulletin Station", under common ownership with the city's largest daily newspaper at the time, The Evening BulletinPhiladelphia Bulletin
For the 2004 resurrection of the Bulletin, see The Bulletin .The Philadelphia Bulletin was a daily evening newspaper published from 1847 to 1982 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the largest circulation newspaper in Philadelphia for 76 years and was once the largest evening newspaper in the...
. The station was cross-promoted with the newspaper and featured an easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
format. At one point, WPBS was called "Velvet Stereo".
In 1976, the newspaper sold the station to LIN Broadcasting which also owned WFIL 560 at the time. Calls changed to WUSL "US-1" and Program Director Jim Nettleton instituted a Soft Adult Contemporary format mixed with standards
Adult standards
Adult standards is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations.Adult standards is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly those persons over 50 years of age, but it is mostly targeted for senior citizens...
which had crossed over to the 1960s/1970's pop charts (i.e. Engelbert Humperdinck, Barbra Streisand, etc.). The morning newsman at this time was Jim Gearhart, who is now on NJ 101.5.
On July 3, 1981, the station switched to a "3-in-a-row" country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
format as "Continuous Country 99 FM". Two months later, co-owned WFIL-AM switched to a more personality and information-leaning country station. Realizing that they were splitting their own audience, WUSL signed off the country format in the early hours of October 9, 1982. The last country song played was "Get Into Reggae, Cowboy" by The Bellamy Brothers.
The next day, at 6AM, the station became Urban Contemporary
Urban contemporary
Urban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, pop, electronica such as dubstep and drum and bass and Caribbean music...
as "Kiss 99" (copying New York's WRKS "Kiss FM"). The station even applied for new calls WPKS "Philadelphia's Kiss", however the owners of 100.3 in Media PA, WKSZ (see below), who at the time hadn't put their station on the air yet, said they were signing on as "Kiss 100" and had already copyrighted the name, and had even started legal action against WUSL.
At this time, LIN Broadcasting was the owner of WUSL.
So, WUSL backed off, dropped the "Kiss" name and was simply "99 FM" for a few weeks, until they began using the name "Power 99FM". Within months, they had surpassed WDAS-FM
WDAS-FM
WDAS-FM is an Urban Adult Contemporary radio station that features R&B and Classic Soul, and is licensed to the city of Philadelphia. The station is widely regarded as one of the originators of the Urban AC format which mixes R&B oldies with non-rap contemporary R&B and is now found in many major...
in the ratings, and other stations around the country began using the "Power" brandname. WUSL continues to be the dominant Urban leader in Philadelphia today.
EZ Communications would Purshase WUSL & WIOQ
WIOQ
WIOQ, known as "Q102", is a CHR/Pop radio station which is broadcast in the Philadelphia area. The station appeals to a generally young demographic. WIOQ is owned by Clear Channel Communications. Its transmitter is located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia.-WFIL-FM/Popular 102:The...
from LIN Broadcasting. EZ Communications was attempting to Merge with American Radio Systems of Boston at this time and would Swap its 2 Philly Stations with Evergreen Media's Charlotte, N.C. Stations.
EZ will exchange its Philadelphia stations, WIOQ-FM and WUSL-FM, plus $10 million for Evergreen's four FM and two AM stations in Charlotte: WPEG-FM; WBAV AM/FM; WNKS-FM; WRFX-FM and WFNZ-AM.
In 1995, when WDAS came under common ownership when Evergreen Media would purshase them, WUSL relinquished its urban format to the current mainstream approach.
One of the most famous programs to ever air on WUSL is the Carter & Sanborn Morning Show, which was cohosted both Brian Carter and Dave Sanborn. The show featured a cast of off-beat characters, all voiced by Sanborn, including wise-cracking horoscope
Horoscope
In astrology, a horoscope is a chart or diagram representing the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, the astrological aspects, and sensitive angles at the time of an event, such as the moment of a person's birth. The word horoscope is derived from Greek words meaning "a look at the hours" In...
reader Horace, the Taurus and fall down drunk blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer Lunchmeat Mumford . Horace became such a popular character that many listeners had mini urban legends circulating that he was a relative or friend from school or the neighborhood, not realizing he was Sanborn. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the show was a main draw in Philadelphia among younger members of both demographics. Bill Simpson, who would later host a nighttime show on both incarnations of Smooth Jazz WJJZ (once at 106.1
WISX
WISX is a Hot adult contemporary radio station licensed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are owned by Clear Channel Communications.-Beautiful Music Era: WQAL/WWSH:...
and again at 97.5), used the alias Dave Sanborn on the show, which often created confusion with the well-known jazz saxophonist David Sanborn
David Sanborn
David Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school...
, especially among those who were not regular listeners. The show was briefly revived in 2005 on WDAS, after that station dropped Tom Joyner
Tom Joyner
Thomas "Tom" Joyner is an American radio host, host of the nationally syndicated The Tom Joyner Morning Show, and also founder of REACH Media Inc., the Tom Joyner Foundation, and BlackAmericaWeb.com.-Early life:...
from its schedule. Some of the other personalities in the 1980s were Fred Buggs who left the station in 1986 and went to WRKS Kiss FM in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Jo Jo Davis, Mike Jackson,(not to be confused with singer Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
) B.J in the morning before Carter & Sanborn started, Barbara Summers, and Don Juan Banks who is still with the station today.
From 1991 to 1998, Power 99 aired the groundbreaking hip hop show Radioactive hosted by Colby Colb, also on the show was DJ Ran, Cosmic Kev and Rob Laid Back Black. Colby Colb started as an intern at the station and following the success of Radioactive went on to host nights (6p-10p), Mornings with Wendy Williams and Dee Lee (The Dream Team)
WUSL was the home of the controversial Star and Buc Wild Morning Show from late 2005 to May 2006. Today it is home of Miss Jones- Jonesy in the morning, Shamara- "The Midday Princess, T-Roy in the Afternoon & The Hot Boyz with Mikey Dredd and Uncle O at night. Power 99 also has Tazz Daddy, who is their Director of Social Media/Web Personality. A Philly native, he's best known for taking the Rickey Smiley Morning show into syndication. DJ Diamond Kuts, who is Nicki Minaj's Tour DJ is also on staff as a personality/mixer, when she's not touring. Star and Buc Wild have since returned to the airwaves, this time as a local based morning show on WPHI.
Power 99 FM is also home to The Come Up Show on Friday's from 10pm - 2am , hosted by DJ Cosmic Kev.
Sunday morning
WUSL has won numerous awards for its newsNews
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
and public affairs programming, a hallmark of which was their Sunday morning programming. From its inception as Power 99, Sunday morning was dedicated to two public affairs shows: Sunday Morning Live, hosted by longtime news anchor Loraine Ballard Morrillhttp://www.blondellonline.com/wmad/pages/wmadballardmorrillhtml.htm and later "Empower Half Hour" with Lehronda Upshurhttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/lehronda-upshur/4/920/99. Morrill and Upshur continue to host shows and broadcast news and traffic on other Clear Channel stations (WDAS
WDAS-FM
WDAS-FM is an Urban Adult Contemporary radio station that features R&B and Classic Soul, and is licensed to the city of Philadelphia. The station is widely regarded as one of the originators of the Urban AC format which mixes R&B oldies with non-rap contemporary R&B and is now found in many major...
, WISX
WISX
WISX is a Hot adult contemporary radio station licensed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are owned by Clear Channel Communications.-Beautiful Music Era: WQAL/WWSH:...
and WIOQ
WIOQ
WIOQ, known as "Q102", is a CHR/Pop radio station which is broadcast in the Philadelphia area. The station appeals to a generally young demographic. WIOQ is owned by Clear Channel Communications. Its transmitter is located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia.-WFIL-FM/Popular 102:The...
) as programming changes have forced public affairs shows from Power 99 to those other stations.
Awards and honors
The station was one of 10 stations awarded the 2007 Crystal Radio AwardNAB Crystal Radio Awards
The NAB Crystal Radio Awards are presented annually by the National Association of Broadcasters to American radio stations. The award was established in 1987 to recognize radio stations for year-round commitment to community service....
for public service awarded by the National Association of Broadcasters
National Association of Broadcasters
The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...
. Winners were honored at the Radio Luncheon on April 17, 2007, during the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
.
FORMER JOCKS
Wendy Williams,
Jo Jo Davis,
Q Deezy,
Colby Colb,
Dee Lee,
Carter and Sandborn,
BJ in the Morning,
Lady B,
DC Todd,
Coka,
Neke At Night,
DJ Ran,
Stanley T,
Jah T,
DJ Cool C,
Don Mystique Mack,
Tony Richards,
Golden Girl,