Technical Profile: WLAY-FM

FM Technical Profile: WLAY

Station Name:: The Shoals Country
Frequency:: 100.1
Format:: Country Hits
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] On Darrell Road, just west of Milk Springs Road.
Power (ERP):: 1.2 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 623 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.

:

PS-WLAY-FM
Time-(unknown)
Text-(blank)
PTY-Country
PI-WLAY-FM
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
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[Image] RDS decoded on an AT&T Insite phone in Florence, showing the PS (station name), Radio Text and PTY (format) fields, May 2019.

[Studio] Street View imagery of the Singing River Media studios on East 2nd Street in Muscle Shoals.

// WLAY Florence
Owner:: Singing River Media Group
History:: This station started out on 97.7 as WZMX, with a transmitter site about halfway between Russellville and Littleville, licensed to Russellville and owned by Rambo Broadcasting. Ownership was transferred to Mountain Top Broadcasting in 1986. It became WSHK in 1990 and the transmitter site was re-located to Littleville for better coverage of Florence. Became WKGL in 1998 after apparently being absorbed by Cumulus Broadcasting. Around this time it had an oldies format. In 2003 the station was passed on to Clear Channel as part of a massive station swap deal and changed calls to WJOR (from 101.5 in St. Joesph, Tennessee) then shortly thereafter to WMXV, where it went urban as V 103. The station was sold to URBan Broadcasting the next year, but not before Clear Channel engineered a change to 103.5 MHz as part of a massive re-alignment of frequencies across north and central Alabama. As a part of the frequency move the station was re-licensed from Russellville to Littleville in 2005, although this did not entail relocating the transmitter site. Later in 2005 the station did receive a permit to relocate to a transmitter site closer to the Quad Cities to basically become a local station to this market. Under URBan's ownership, the station changed format to country and later changed calls to WLAY-FM. 103.5 and 100.3 simulcast the country for a bit before the other station went to another format. This is the third Florence area FM station to host the historic WLAY calls — they appear to be originally on 105.5 MHz before going to 100.3 MHz and then to here.

The station received a construction permit in late May, 2016 to lower power slightly while moving from 103.5 MHz to 100.1 MHz; the move is to allow Huntsville's K-Love affiliate, WHVK, to increase power and height in that market. The tentative date for moving was announced as August 10th, but the station actually made the move two days early.

On 5 July 2017, Tuscumbia Utilities disconnected the power to the studios in town, causing all the stations to lose their programming feeds. The stations fell silent (but remained on with dead air). The station returned to the air on 12 July 2017.

The station was sold, along with the other URBan Radio group of stations, to Singing River Media Group in October 2018, for $1.275 million. Singing River Media Group is headed by James Michael Self, whose father (D. Mitchell Self) was the former owner of WLAY AM and FM. Singing River tweaked the country music format slightly a more Variety Country blend similar to Cumulus' Nash Icon format.

As of the start of 2020, the station was reported to be simulcasting on AM sister WLAY. The station received a permit in May 2020 to relocate to a nearby tower on Darrell Road, just northwest of their old site off Milk Springs Road. The change would come with a drop in power but increase in height of nearly 300 feet. That facility signed on in May 2023.