102 9 jacksonville Jacksonville, Florida is home to commercial FM radio station WEZI (102.9 MHz “Easy 102.9”). The Atlanta-based Cox Media Group owns and operates the station, which plays adult contemporary music.
The studios and offices of the station can be found on Belfort Parkway in the Southside neighborhood of Jacksonville. The transmitting facility can be found in the Arlington area, not far from Hogan Road. WEZI is a Class C FM station that broadcasts from a tower 1,014 feet (309 m) above mean sea level with an ERP of 100,000 watts (HAAT). Its signal can be received as far west as Gainesville, Florida, and as far south as St. Augustine, Georgia.
The radio station went on the air as WIVY-FM on November 1, 1965. The original power output was only 28,900 watts, or about a third of the current output. It was the companion station to the daytimer AM 1050 WIVY, making WIVY’s broadcasts available 24 hours a day. Ed Bell Oberle, a popular New York City DJ, controlled both stations. Alumni Radio, Inc. bought the stations the next year.
Another New York announcer, Tom Kirby, purchased the stations in 1971 and renamed them Jacksonville Broadcasting. After observing the success of rock formats on FM stations in other locations, he hired a group of young DJs and flipped the format of both stations to focus on album-oriented music (AOR). (The AM station switched to 1280 kHz but continued to broadcast WIVY-FM around the clock during the day.)
In 1976, Kirby sold WIVY-FM to Progressive Communications’s spinoff, Torrid Broadcasting. It rebranded as “Y-103,” playing Top 40 tunes. When Gilmore Broadcasting purchased WIVY-FM in 1985, they increased the station’s power to 100,000 watts in order to better serve the growing Jacksonville radio market. After being purchased by J.J. Taylor Communications in 1988, the station changed its format to hot adult contemporary music while maintaining the Y-103 moniker.
It was acquired by Capstar in 1998. The station rebranded as “Mix 103” and changed its call letters to WMXQ while maintaining its Hot AC genre. The year 2000 saw the sale of WMXQ from Capstar to Cox Radio. On November 1, 2000, Cox rebranded the station as “102.9 The Point” and switched to playing only songs from the 1980s.
At 5:55 a.m. on February 25, 2009, Cox changed the format of WMXQ to alternative rock under the name “X102.9.” Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” was the final track on “The Point” (bookending the format, as it was the first song that launched “The Point”). System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” was the album’s opener. (flossdental.com) The station went on the air as an alternative to WPLA, a long-running modern rock institution (now mainstream rock WWJK). [12] On April 7th, 2009, the call sign WXXJ was officially established.
WXXJ’s ratings surge allowed it to launch a full-scale assault on its main format competitor. This station obstructed WPLA’s annual “Easter Keg Hunt” by offering $300 in exchange for kegs and flying a banner over Metropolitan Park during the previous Planetfest. The WPLA administration contacted the cops to end the commotion. With the departure of WPLA from the alternative rock format on August 4, 2010, the city of Jacksonville is now served solely by WXXJ, a modern rock station, until 2019.
On November 20th, 2017, WXXJ changed its name to “Easy 102.9” and its programming to “soft adult contemporary” from that of WEZI (106.5 FM), its sister station. After airing exclusively Christmas music for a few days, “Easy” switched back to its regular Soft AC programming on December 26, 2017. On November 26, 2017, the two stations changed their call letters.
Through the incorporation of more modern music and a renewed emphasis on adult contemporary singles from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, WEZI has transitioned to a more commercially viable adult contemporary format.
