Technical Profile: WGZZ

FM Technical Profile: WGZZ

Station Name:: Wings 94.3
Frequency:: 94.3
Format:: Classic Rock
Transmitter Location:: [map] About a half mile south of the intersection of AL-50 (Allgood Street) and Godfrey Road, just to the east of Godfrey Road, south of the town of Camp Hill.
Power (ERP):: 4.2 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 459 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; HD-2: News/Talk
// WANI Auburn
// W254AY 98.7 Auburn; HD-3: Sports Talk
"ESPN AU"; // W294AR 106.7 Ridge Grove
HD-4: Hot AC
"96.3 W-LEE"
// W242AX 96.3 Auburn
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
[Article] Story on FCC losing bid to revoke station's license due to Mike Hubbard's ethics conviction.
[Facebook] For Wings 94.3
[Twitter] For Wings 94.3
[Facebook] For ESPN AU
[Twitter] For ESPN AU
[Facebook] For 96.3 W-LEE
[Twitter] For 96.3 W-LEE
Owner:: Auburn Network, Inc.
History:: This station signed on in 1989 with an adult contemporary format as WZLM, licensed to Dadeville, and run by Dale Broadcasting, Inc. It was originally on 97.3 MHz and served the Lake Martin Area. Dale Broadcasting sold the station to Great South Wireless in 2003. The station received a permit to move to 100.3 MHz in 2004, as part of a move to make room for a station upgrade in Birmingham. After changing frequencies, the station was sold by Great South to the Auburn Network, and the station started to slowly inch its way down Highway 280 towards Auburn. First came a move to a transmitter site near Camp Hill; later it re-licensed to the community of Waverly and moved to 94.3 MHz, in 2009. The move to this new frequency was also part of a chain of events affecting stations further south — Monroeville's WEZZ moved to Brantley, while Brantley's WAOQ was permitted to move to Goshen. As of February 2016, the permit for that move has just been granted, meaning this whole set of moves has taken around seven years so far. WGZZ made another move closer to Auburn that involved relocating to a site just north of the curiously named area known as The Bottle. That facility went on the air on 19 April, 2010.

Under Auburn Network's ownership, the station became a companion, of sorts, for AM talker WANI in Auburn. WGZZ became one of the few stations in a non-major market to adopt HD in the late 2000's, and began WANI's talk format on the HD-2. It later was used to broadcast the AM talk format on an FM translator in Auburn. The station added an HD-3 format with sports, then dropped it for oldies and began feeding that music on a different area translator around 2011. A different translator in Auburn was acquired for the HD-3, which later became adult contemporary, as "Star 94.7". That translator later moved to Roanoke to rebroadcast a different station; the HD-3 began to be heard on a translator at 106.5 MHz in Auburn, which later moved up one channel to 106.7 MHz. It then flipped to sports again with the ESPN network. At some point in 2016 (it was not reported or promoted anywhere) the HD-4 came on with Hot AC, fed to translator W242AX in Auburn as "96.3 W-Lee".

In September 2020 it was announced the station (along with the translators that are fed by the HD subchannels, a Construction Permit for WHBD-LD Auburn and the East Alabama Living magazine) was being sold to Marble City Media's Lee Perryman (as "Auburn Networks, LLC") for $775,000. Auburn Network, Inc's owner, former Alabama Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard, was convicted of misusing his office for personal gain in July 2016; the appeal was just recently denied, leading to sell of some of his assets. The FCC held the license transfer in abeyance while attempting to revoke Auburn Network Inc.'s right to hold licenses.

In May 2022, an FCC administrative law judge ruled that the FCC Enforcement Bureau failed to prove that Hubbard's infringements should lead to the revocation of the licenses.