The station
signed on the air on September 20, 1982 as
WDTB. It originally broadcast on 1170 kHz with 1,000 watts, days only. It used the
all news programming of
CNN Headline News. The call letters were changed to the present WXLA on June 29, 1984. WXLA was the first radio station to program specifically to Lansing's
African-American community with an
urban contemporary /
R&B format. In July 2005, the station increased its power and began referring to itself as
10,000 Watt 1180. With its new
directional antenna, the station could be heard as far away as
Grand Rapids,
Bay City and
Flint. In 2006,
MacDonald Broadcasting purchased WXLA and
sister station 96.5
WQHH for $3.65 million. MacDonald switched from the
urban adult contemporary format (as "Mix 1180") to
ABC Radio's "
Timeless" (formerly known as "Stardust")
Middle of the Road/
Oldies/Adult Standards format in October 2006. The Timeless Classics format had previously aired on co-owned "Unforgettable 1320"
WILS and was moved to WXLA to make room for a new
talk format on WILS. In 2010, with the demise of Citadel Media's Timeless format, WXLA flipped to
Dial Global's "
America's Best Music" format, which features many of the same songs that Timeless played but also incorporated more traditional adult standards material and pre-1960s hits. (America's Best Music has since evolved to mostly Soft
Oldies with a few
adult standards songs in the
playlist.) Despite the fact that the actual "Timeless Favorites" format is no more, WXLA continues to use the phrase "Timeless Favorites" in its imaging. On August 11, 2020, WXLA changed their format from adult standards to soft adult contemporary, branded as "Easy 93.3" (simulcast on FM translator W227DO 93.3 FM Lansing). ==References==