| WEJZ | |
| City: | Jacksonville, Florida |
| Area: | Jacksonville metropolitan area |
| Branding: | 96.1 WEJZ |
| Format: | Adult Contemporary |
| Erp: | 100,000 watts |
| Haat: | 300 meters (984 ft) |
| Class: | C0 |
| Licensing Authority: | FCC |
| Facility Id: | 55706 |
| Affiliations: | Premiere Networks |
| Owner: | Renda Broadcasting |
| Licensee: | Renda Broadcasting Corp. of Nevada |
| Sister Stations: | WGNE-FM |
| Webcast: | Listen Live |
| Website: | wejz.com |
WEJZ (96.1 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Jacksonville, Florida.[1] It is owned by Renda Broadcasting and airs a mainstream adult contemporary radio format. WEJZ is the Jacksonville affiliate for the syndicated Delilah show. Between mid-November and December 25 each year, the station switches to all-Christmas music.
WEJZ's studios and offices are located on Atlantic Boulevard in the Arlington district of Jacksonville, and it transmits from Downtown Jacksonville, via a tower shared with other radio and TV stations.[2] WEJZ is a Class C radio station, broadcasting at 100,000 watts effective radiated power (ERP) from an antenna at nearly 1,000 feet. The signal stretches from Brunswick, Georgia, to Gainesville, Florida.
In 1948, the station first signed on as WMBR-FM, sister station to WMBR (now WQOP).[3] It was owned by the Florida Broadcasting Company, which the following year put WMBR-TV on the air, the second TV station in Florida (now WJXT). WMBR-FM simulcast the programming of its AM counterpart.
In the 1950s, the Washington Post bought the TV station, while the radio stations came under the ownership of WMBR, Incorporated.[4] In 1965, 96.1 became WKTZ-FM, when it was bought by Jones College, and was paired with WKTZ. The two stations aired a beautiful music format of soft instrumentals, with limited talk and commercials.
On October 1, 1985, 96.1 was bought by the Kravis Company, which already owned WRXJ (now WFXJ).[5] The call sign became WLCS-FM, airing a soft adult contemporary format. Meanwhile, WKTZ-FM, still owned by Jones College, became non-commercial, moving to 90.9 MHz (now K-Love station WJKV).
On June 21, 1987, WLCS was bought by WIN Communications.[6] The new owners changed the call letters to the current WEJZ, continuing its Soft AC format and rebranding the station "Lite 96.1."
In June 1990, the station was acquired by Renda Broadcasting. In January 2015, WEJZ dropped the "Lite" in its name, rebranded as 96.1 WEJZ, and moved to a more upbeat playlist of mainstream adult contemporary songs from the 1980s to current hits.
In 2019, 96.1 rebranded to 96.1 EJZ and switched to more modern pop-based playlist. They became known as playing "The most music for your workday" and added popular features that they maintain to this day, such as commercial-free hours of music. However, in 2022, the station reverted to the 96.1 WEJZ branding and moved to a Soft rock-based selection of music.
WEJZ first flipped to all Christmas music in 2006, and has continued the practice every year since, becoming "Jacksonville's Christmas Music Station".[7] They begin airing Christmas music in mid-November (generally the week before Thanksgiving) and continue it throughout the Christmas season, ending on December 26. Each year on Christmas Eve at noon, WEJZ begins airing 36 hours of Christmas music, which includes little to no advertisements.[8] Christmas music generally increases ratings for the station as it hits #1 in the Nielsen Holiday Ratings.[9] [10] In 2023, the station set a new record high for having a 19.8 market share in Jacksonville during the Holiday season. This placed WEJZ as the second-highest listened-to radio station in the country during the 2023 Christmas Season, only behind KSFI's 20.2 share in Salt Lake City.[11] WEJZ formerly ran an event called "12 Days of Christmas" where the station would give away prizes to listeners; however, this was discontinued in 2022.
Usually, WEJZ has no main competitor for Christmas music in Jacksonville. However, there are some cases where WEJZ has to compete for the audience. Such a case was in 2017 when WEZI flipped to all-Christmas music for the holiday season.[12] Other scenarios are Christian Contemporary stations, such as WCRJ or WJKV, flipping to Christmas Music for the Holiday Season.[13] Generally, however, these stations do not reach as high in the ratings as WEJZ.
WEJZ has a large on-air staff. Arthur and Yvonne go live weekdays from 5:30 am - 10 am,[14] Jordan Kline covers middays at the station, Matt Basford is on-air in the afternoon, and Brian Jordan covers the weekends. WEJZ also carries Delilah, which airs Sunday through Friday 7 pm - 12 am. Overnights are automated with no live DJs.
The flagship of WEJZ is the commercial-free workday, which kicks off weekdays at 7:30am and continues until 8:30. There are often many advertisements and promotions about this event that can be heard on the station.
WEJZ bears resemblance to many other Renda Broadcasting-owned stations. The most notable being Pittsburgh's WSHH, which shares some of the same DJs as WEJZ, an example being Jordan Kline. Both stations carry the same music genre, and syndicated radio shows and are seen as the two flagship-stations of their parent company.
WEJZ currently only has one sister station in Jacksonville, which is Country music WGNE-FM. However, they used to have two others. Renda Broadcasting formerly owned WMUV and WSOS-FM, before selling the stations to Chesapeake-Portsmouth Broadcasting Corporation in 2014. [15] This left WEJZ and WGNE-FM as the only Renda-owned stations left in Northeast Florida.