The station originated as the expanded band "twin" of an existing station on the standard AM band. On March 17, 1997, the FCC announced that eighty-eight stations had been given permission to move to newly available "
Expanded Band" transmitting frequencies, ranging from 1610 to 1700 kHz, with
WGIV in Charlotte authorized to move from 1600 to 1660 kHz. A construction permit for the expanded band station was assigned the call letters WBHE on September 4, 1998. Programming on the expanded band station, which changed its call letters to WFNA on December 9, 2003, WFNZ must power down to 1,000 watts at night, rendering it all but unlistenable in some parts of the Charlotte
radio market. The station was switched its
call sign to WBMX on July 29, 2009. A few weeks later, on August 12, it again switched its call letters to WBCN. The assignment of the WBMX and WBCN call letters came as
CBS Radio prepared for a radio station shuffle in
Boston.
WBCN, Boston's longtime rock station, was set to move to a digital-only platform, while 98.5
WBMX was moving to WBCN's old frequency at 104.1 FM. This swap was being made to create a new Boston
sports radio station at 98.5 FM. On August 5, 2009, Mix 98.5 in Boston switched its callsign from WBMX-FM to
WBZ-FM. The WBMX call sign was parked in Charlotte, while WBCN aired for its final days. Shortly after midnight on August 12, 2009, WBCN
signed off, and the WBCN and WBMX calls were switched to complete the process. According to
The Charlotte Observer, CBS decided to park the WBCN call letters in Charlotte to keep another Boston station from picking them up and trading on the station's 51-year heritage in Boston (including 41 years as a rock station). Bill Schoening, CBS Radio manager for Charlotte, said, "It's very common in the business. It was a major signal with call letters that still have value and heritage."
Switch to Talk On September 14, 2009, WBCN became "America's Talk", a conservative
talk radio station featuring
syndicated hosts
Michael Smerconish,
Melanie Morgan,
Jason Lewis,
Glenn Beck,
Sean Hannity,
Laura Ingraham,
John Gibson and
Phil Hendrie. The target audience was primarily male and ages 25 to 54. Operations manager DJ Stout said, "We feel that Charlotte has never really had an alternative when it comes to news talk." Jason Lewis, a former host at 1110
WBT, said, "I think it'll be the stiffest competition WBT has seen in a while." Local newscasts each hour were produced jointly with local TV station
WCNC-TV. Lewis moved back to WBT in 2011.
Switch to CBS Sports On June 21, 2012, Mark Washburn of
The Charlotte Observer reported that, starting in 2013, WBCN would be one of the charter affiliates of the new
CBS Sports Radio network and would carry that network's programming throughout the day. WBCN began airing network programming on January 2, 2013. It also aired any
Wake Forest or
Davidson basketball games that conflicted with
Charlotte Hornets games on WFNZ. On October 2, 2014, CBS Radio announced that it would trade all of its
Tampa and Charlotte stations, including WBCN, as well as
WIP in
Philadelphia to the
Beasley Broadcast Group in exchange for five stations located in
Miami and Philadelphia. The swap was completed on December 1, 2014. On September 8, 2015, WBCN changed back to conservative talk, branded as "America's Pulse 1660".
Switch to "Smoke" On June 19, 2017, at 6 a.m., WBCN flipped formats to
classic rock, branded as "94.7 Smoke", and began relaying on translator W234BY (94.7 FM). The station aired an original
playlist, focused on Southern classic rock artists including
Lynyrd Skynyrd,
ZZ Top,
The Allman Brothers and
Tom Petty, as well as local artists, and some Southern country tracks. It competed with
iHeartMedia's longtime classic rock outlet
WRFX. While WBCN was also heard on FM through a 250-
watt translator station, WRFX's effective radiated power is 84,000 watts.
Switch to Fox Sports On February 4, 2019, the station returned to a sports format, now with an affiliation with
Fox Sports Radio.
Station goes dark On December 31, 2020, WBCN went
silent. The "Fox Sports Charlotte" sports format continued on W234BY 94.7 FM and
WSOC-FM HD3. On February 5, 2021, the call sign of the still silent station was changed to
WJBX in a swap with
a radio station near Fort Myers, Florida. WJBX's license was cancelled on August 24, 2022. ==References==