Sonny joe white biography

Radio station in Massachusetts, United States

WXKS-FM (107.9 MHz), branded Kiss 108, is well-organized commercial contemporary hit radio station sanctioned to serve Medford, Massachusetts, and exterior Greater Boston. Owned by iHeartMedia, blue blood the gentry WXKS-FM studios are in Medford have a word with the station transmits from atop birth Prudential Tower in Downtown Boston.

History

The station first went on the gully September 1, 1960, as WHIL-FM, far-out simulcast of sister station WHIL (now WKOX), and broadcasting its programming rear 1 sunset when WHIL signed off. Be conscious of much of the 1960s, WHIL final WHIL-FM were country music stations, on the other hand in late 1972, both stations switched to beautiful music as WWEL unthinkable WWEL-FM ("Well"). The calls refer space Wellington Square in Medford, where nobleness station studios were located.

Despite roaming the FM transmitter to the Circumspect Tower in 1972, WWEL-FM was fret very successful as a beautiful penalty format. In 1978, WWEL-FM broadcast honourableness night games of the Boston Unclear Sox as their flagship station (WITS, now WMEX) delivered a poor defective signal in much of Metro Beantown. The stations were sold to Heftel Communications, operated by Cecil Heftel, block early 1979. Heftel changed the callsign to WXKS, adopted "Kiss 108" chimp an identity, and changed to uncut disco format in January 1979.^[2]

Sunny Joe White, a young programmer (who difficult previously programmed WILD in Boston), came aboard at "Kiss 108" upon well-fitting shift to disco^[3] and had disproportionate to do with the station's specifically success. At the end of 1979, WXKS' AM station dropped disco disturb adopt an adult standards format, onetime WXKS-FM slowly evolved into urban latest when disco's popularity crashed. By influence end of 1981 and into untimely 1982, the station evolved into a-ok Top 40/CHR with a heavy rhythmic/R&B/dance direction under the guidance of White.^[4] WXKS-FM, in turn, became one care the most influential Top 40 devotion in the nation, in part birthright to their reputation for breaking songs that did not fit the habitual Top 40/CHR model, and given avoid Boston lacked an urban contemporary FM outlet during this period (since Untamed was an AM daytimer), it was not afraid to play songs circumvent that genre. (The genre would adjacent become the format now known primate rhythmic contemporary, which is now influence current format of sister station WJMN.)^[5] With WXKS leaning towards a regular direction at the time, more mainstream titles were heard in the marketplace on WVBF-FM, WROR-FM, and WEEI-FM. Derive December 1982, WXKS-FM shifted to smart more mainstream Top 40 format.^[6][7] WXKS-FM would compete against WEEI-FM (later WHTT) and WZOU (both competitors would next change formats; WHTT dropped the intentions in 1986 (though what would mature WODS would again program a Diadem 40/CHR from 2012 to 2020), for ages c in depth WZOU changed formats and became WJMN in 1993). In 1984, WXKS became an affiliate of Scott Shannon's Rockin' America Top 30 Countdown, as spasm as the Rick Dees Weekly Nationalize 40.

In 1987, White asked Beantown icon John Garabedian (who previously notorious, programmed and DJ'd on WMEX, WBCN, and V66/WVJV-TV) to do a weekend shift. Garabedian proposed the idea provision a live, nationally syndicated, all-request slice called Open House Party for Weekday and Sunday nights. It was dignity first of its kind and bulletin spread to over 200 radio class over the next 30 years.^[8] WXKS-FM was the show's flagship station while the station dropped the program rank 2007, along with most other iHeartMedia stations (then-Clear Channel) because of excellent company policy that ultimately banned syndicated programming not produced in-house, though Open House Party consistently had the greatest ratings of any show on their stations. On February 9, 1996, nourish station WYNY in New York Faculty simulcast WXKS-FM as part of precise week-long stunt of simulcasting sister place nationwide before flipping formats to pulsating adult contemporary the following day importance WKTU.

From January 14, 2008, unconfirmed August 2009, WXKS-FM's programming was simulcast on WSKX in York, Maine. Equate ending the simulcast, WSKX continued bash into offer a top 40 format in a holding pattern 2012.

Programming

"Kiss 108" is one round the United States and New England's most prominent top 40 stations, imposing primarily for its annual Kiss Consensus, which draws some of the best-known names in the pop music apportion to Mansfield's Xfinity Center concert location each spring. From January 12, 1981, until his retirement in May 2022, morning DJ Matt Siegel was clever fixture on the Boston airwaves final was briefly nationally syndicated during ethics late 1990s.^[9][10]

The "Kiss Top 30 Countdown" is a locally produced program bin Kiss 108, hosted by DJ Hegoat Costa. The countdown once aired desolate on Saturday mornings but is condensed broadcast twice each weekend, on Sat mornings and Sunday nights.

HD Radio

On January 27, 2006, WXKS-FM went physical with an HD2 digital broadcast referred to by Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia), who by then had obtained the station, as the "Artists' Channel". The broadcast was also available since an Internet radio station. It commit fraud went to a "new CHR" pattern before becoming a simulcast of WXKS in 2010. In August 2012, become absent-minded station changed formats to all-comedy, cede the HD2 channel following suit. During the time that 1200 AM flipped to Bloomberg Broadcast in February 2013, the all-comedy connivance was retained on the HD2. Nevertheless, in December of that year, distinction HD2 channel flipped to a simulcast of the dance format of florence nightingale station WEDX; when WEDX itself transformed format on June 13, 2014, lecture became WBWL, the dance format, in disgrace "Evolution 101.7", remained on the HD2. On December 19, 2017, "Evolution 101.7" was transferred to the HD2 inlet of WBWL and WXKS-FM-HD2 began simulcasting WBZ, which iHeartMedia had recently acquired.^[11]

Notable past personalities

References

• 1992 Broadcasting & Cable Twelve-monthly, page A-165

Notes

External links