| WPZZ | |
| City: | Crewe, Virginia |
| Area: | Southside Virginia Richmond, Virginia Petersburg, Virginia |
| Branding: | Praise 104.7 |
| Frequency: | 104.7 MHz |
| Format: | Urban gospel |
| Power: | 100,000 Watts |
| Haat: | 299m (981feet) |
| Class: | C1 |
| Facility Id: | 321 |
| Coordinates: | 37.1708°N -77.9544°W |
| Callsign Meaning: | W PraiZe Z |
| Former Callsigns: | WSVS-FM (1949–1991) WKIK (1991–1995) WBZU (1995–1996) WVGO (1996–1998) WKJS (1998–2004) |
| Owner: | Urban One |
| Licensee: | Radio One Licenses, LLC |
| Sister Stations: | WCDX, WKJM, WKJS, WTPS, WXGI |
| Webcast: | WPZZ Webstream |
| Website: | WPZZ Online |
WPZZ (104.7 FM) is an urban gospel-formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Crewe, Virginia, serving the Southside and the Richmond/Petersburg metro area. WPZZ is owned and operated by Radio One.[1] The station's studios and offices are located just north of Richmond proper on Emerywood Parkway[2] in unincorporated Henrico County, and its transmitter is located near Blackstone, Virginia.[3]
104.7 started in 1948 as WSVS-FM, a complement to its AM sister WSVS. It broadcast just west of Crewe with 14,000 watts of power. In the late 1970s, the station upgraded to a class C1 station with 100,000 watts of power, which gave it an adequate signal that could be received in most of the Central Virginia area.[4] In 1988, they moved to their current tower location to not only send a better signal into Richmond, but also to make it more desirable to sell. It was at that time WSVS-FM became "Power Country 104.7," with all programming separate from WSVS-AM.[5] In 1991, the station was sold to ABS Communications in Richmond and became "104.7 The Bear," with the WKIK call letters.[6] The FM studios were moved out of Crewe and co-located in with ABS's Richmond based headquarters. ABS owned the only other country stations in the Richmond market with "K-95" and "The Bear." "The Bear" was designed to be a classic country format, while "K-95" was to be the new country format.
At 5 p.m. on August 23, 1995, ABS flipped WKIK to modern rock as WBZU, "104.7 The Buzz, Richmond's New Rock Alternative."[7] The success of this station caused Richmond's AAA station WVGO to lose listeners. ABS later purchased WVGO (and its sister station WLEE-FM), changed WVGO's AAA format (and ended the local broadcast of "The Howard Stern Show") and moved "The Buzz" and the WBZU calls to 106.5, while 104.7 became a satellite-fed oldies station as "Oldies 104.7" (the WVGO calls were moved to 104.7) in August 1996.[8] [9] [10]
In February 1998, the station was sold to Fifteen Forty Broadcasting, then owners of adult urban WSOJ (100.3 FM) and local gospel station WREJ-AM, who began a simulcast of WSOJ on both 100.3 and 104.7 beginning February 10, and rebranded as "104.7 Kiss FM", and adopted the WKJS calls three days later.[11] Radio One later purchased both 104.7 and 100.3 from Fifteen Forty in March 1999.[12] In November 2000, the 104.7/100.3 simulcast ended, and Radio One began simulcasting their then-country station, WJRV ("105.7 The River") on 100.3 with new calls WARV.[13] On November 18, 2004, as part of a complex series of moves, Radio One moved the urban gospel-formatted "Praise 99.3" to 104.7, while "Kiss FM" moved to 99.3 and 105.7 (this caused urban oldies WJMO to sign off). The WPZZ calls would be adopted on December 7 of that year.[14]