WYJB

WYJB

City of license	Albany, New York
Broadcast area	Capital District
Branding	B95.5
Slogan	One Great Song After Another (primary) The Best Variety of Yesterday and Today (secondary)
Frequency	95.5 MHz
First air date	1959 (as WROW-FM)
Format	Adult Contemporary
ERP	12,000 watts
HAAT	312.0 meters
Class	B
Facility ID	836
Transmitter coordinates	42°38′10.69″N 73°59′57.9264″W
Callsign meaning	None; randomly assigned by the FCC
Former callsigns	WROW-FM (1959-12/29/1993)
Owner	Pamal Broadcasting (6 Johnson Roal Licenses, Inc.)
Sister stations	WAJZ, WFLY, WKLI, WROW, WZMR
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	b95.com

WYJB (95.5 FM, "B95.5") is an adult contemporary (with a slight lean towards Hot AC) formatted radio station licensed to Albany, New York and serving New York's Capital District as well as the surrounding areas, including the Adirondacks. The station is owned by Pamal Broadcasting, and broadcasts at a power of 12 kilowatts effective radiated power (ERP) from the Helderberg Mountains antenna farm in New Scotland.

Programming

WYJB's adult contemporary format is a direct evolution of WROW-FM's former easy listening format, which began in the early 1960s. The station has had an adult contemporary format since 1991, originally strictly Soft AC, evolving towards mainstream AC and eventually developing a slight Hot AC lean in recent years. The station has been #1 overall in several books since its launch, and its primary competitors are WRVE (99.5 The River) and WJKE (Star 101.3, a rimshot in the Saratoga/Glens Falls area).

As of September 2012, the station staff is: The B95.5 Breakfast Club with Bill Fox and Suzy Garcia (6:00 am–10:00 am), Lynn Wilson (10:00 am–3:00 pm), Chad O'Hara (3:00 pm–7:00 pm), and the syndicated Delilah weeknight show (7:00 pm–midnight).

History

1950s–1993: WROW-FM

The 95.5 frequency, originally allocated to the unbuilt WXKW-FM in 1950, signed on in 1959 as WROW-FM, sister to Capital Cities Communications flagship WROW and initially simulcasting the AM's programming. After the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) forced FM stations to originate their own programming in 1967, it aired a time-delayed variation of the AM's easy listening format. This arrangement remained until after Capital Cities sold the WROW stations in 1983, at which point the FM became the primary station which the AM largely simulcasted.

With the decline of easy listening formats in the late 1980s, WROW-FM evolved to a Soft AC format as EZ95.5 in early 1991 with easy listening moving solely to the AM side. Though with a good signal in comparison to rival WKLI-FM, the easy listening heritage of the 95.5 frequency proved to be detrimental to the growth of the station. In late 1993, the WROW stations were sold to Albany Broadcasting (forerunner to today's Pamal Broadcasting), at which point an overhaul of the station took place.

1994–present: WYJB

On January 3, 1994, EZ95.5 relaunched with a more mainstream AC sound as The New B95.5 with the WYJB calls coming into effect several days prior. Within five years of the launch, the station became the death knell for the weaker WKLI signal's AC format (and also many of its future rival stations, including a K-Lite revival on 94.5 FM and Buzz 105.7).

In 2001, Delilah was added to the station in the evenings after WKLI (then on 94.5 FM) flipped to classic rock; and continued to develop a slight Hot AC lean, even more so with sister station WCPT (now WKLI-FM) changing to a soft AC/standards format. Five years later, the long-time morning show Chuck and Kelly moved to competitor WBZZ (originally on 104.5, later on 105.7), and Ric Mitchell and Laura Daniels (formerly of WFLY) were named Chuck and Kelly's replacements. In 2010, Ric Mitchell left WYJB with Chuck Taylor returning to the morning show shortly after, but from when WBZZ dumped adult contemporary that year, it left WYJB and rimshot competitor WQAR (now WJKE) as Albany's only adult contemporary radio stations.

On November 9, 2011, the station flipped to Christmas music for the first time, in response to the flip of nearby oldies station WTRY-FM to all-Christmas the same day. Shortly after Christmas, the station tweaked into more of a Hot AC sound with new slogans and jingles; however, the station still reports as adult contemporary on Nielsen BDS and Mediabase charts.

External links

• Query the FCC's FM station database for WYJB
• Radio-Locator information on WYJB
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WYJB
• Aerial view of WYJB studios from Google Local