WRVR-FM

The station first went on the air in 1961 as WRVR, a religious station owned by The Riverside Church, New York City that played classical music and some jazz, along with religious programming and public affairs, a precursor in many ways to the NPR format. A remnant of this period is a 5 A.M. Sunday morning sermon from the church that airs on the station. As time went on, WRVR was a full-time jazz station with a strong following, but low ratings. In 1976 WRVR was purchased by Sonderling Broadcasting, owner of WWRL, with the hope that it could move to an urban format and compete against WBLS, which had cut into WWRL's ratings. However, community opposition prevented the format change and WRVR remained a jazz station under Sonderling ownership. At that time it developed the precursor to what would later become known as the "smooth jazz" format. In 1980 Viacom bought the Sonderling chain, and the station adopted a country music format known as "Kick 106.7 FM" and the call letters were changed to WKHK. The format change, from jazz to country, took place in the middle of the night. The change brought many protests from New York jazz fans, and a petition to the FCC to deny the station's license renewal, which was denied. (The WRVR calls were moved to a radio station in Memphis, TN, that had once been owned by Viacom, but is now owned by Entercom.) However, ratings were low, as they were unable to compete with WHN, which also had a country music format at the time. In 1988, a new jazz station appeared on the New York airwaves, with the call letters WQCD ("CD101.9"); for a time, it existed as an HD2 station to WRXP, the station that replaced it (which later changed calls to WEMP, then back to WRXP, and is now WFAN-FM). Then, on January 23, 1984, Viacom dropped country and changed the calls to WLTW.