WBHJ
 |
|
| City | Midfield, Alabama |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Birmingham, Alabama |
| Branding | 95.7 Jamz |
| Slogan | "The Real Deal", "Birmingham's #1 for Hip-Hop and R&B", "Bangin' 95 Minutes of Music All the Time" |
| Frequency | 95.7 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | 1958 (as WTBC-FM) |
| Format |
Mainstream Urban/Rhythmic Contemporary HD2: Contemporary Christian HD3: Urban Gospel (WAGG simulcast) |
| ERP | 12,000 watts |
| HAAT | 306 meters |
| Class | C2 |
| Facility ID | 730 |
| Callsign meaning | W BirmingHam's Jamz |
| Former callsigns | WTBC-FM (1958-?) WUOA (?-1984) WFFX (1984-1996) |
| Owner | Summit Media LLC (SM-WBHJ, LLC) |
| Sister stations | WAGG, WBHK, WBPT, WENN, WPYA, WZZK |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website |
957jamz.com birmingham.wayfm.com (HD2) |
WBHJ (95.7 FM, "95.7 Jamz") is an urban-leaning rhythmic-formatted radio station that serves Birmingham, Alabama. In 2005, it also began broadcasting in IBOC digital radio, using the HD Radio system from iBiquity. It is owned by Summit Media LLC along with six other stations in the market, and all share studios in the Cahaba neighborhood in far southeast Birmingham. Its transmitter is located atop Red Mountain in Birmingham.
95.7 originally came on the air in 1958 as WTBC-FM, a Tuscaloosa station that was a companion to WTBC (AM) "News/Talk 1230" with its transmitter on 15th Street. As WTBC-FM, the station was just a placeholder for the AM station, playing a stack of MOR format LP's on a turntable. A contributor who worked at WTBC-AM notes that when the stack of records was finished, it just started playing over! Station IDs weren't done regularly because they were done by the often-forgetful AM jocks. The program director would go live for a few hours each night and was probably the only live person on the air daily. It later became WUOA (University of Alabama), an adult contemporary-formatted college radio station. Another change occurred in 1984 with the calls switching to WFFX, "95.7 the Fox", and the addition of modern rock.
It then moved into the Birmingham market in the 1990s, and was during that period the transmitter moved to a taller tower near Vance. On July 15, 1996, the calls were changed to WBHJ and the format of the station to "95.7 Jamz", an Urban-formatted radio station. The first Jamz program director was Mickey Johnson. Since that time, the station has been one of Birmingham's top rated radio stations.
In November 2004, after years of being plagued by an inadequate signal into its primary listening area of Birmingham, the station applied for a construction permit to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move its transmitter from Vance to Red Mountain. In June 2005 the station completed a move to boost its signal in the Birmingham market by getting relicensed to the Birmingham suburb of Midfield and moving its transmitter site from rural Bibb County (near Vance) to Red Mountain, where the other high-power Birmingham stations are located. Although the move required a reduction in power from 100 kilowatts to just 12.2 kilowatts, the move has provided a strong signal to listeners in the immediate market area.
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Wikipedia