The station first signed on in 1948.[4] The call sign was WBRE-FM, originally licensed to Wilkes-Barre. It was the sister station to WBRE (1480 AM, now WYCK).[5] The WBRE call letters stood for Baltimore Radio Exchange for the original owner, the Baltimore family, and not Wilkes-Barre like commonly thought. WBRE-AM-FM evolved through a number of radio formats and by the 1970s, was all-news radio.[6] At first, the stations used NBC's NIS (News and Information Service). When that was discontinued, it ran the all-news format with its own staff. WBRE-FM, up to that point, broadcast in FM mono since its start in 1948. The station's audience was loyal but the ratings were not great.[7]
WBRE-FM made a big change in 1980, when it was sold. The new owners added FM stereo, along with a format switch to contemporary hit radio music, and with the call sign change to the present WKRZ. WKRZ has been a contemporary hit radio station since 1980, branded at first as 98½ FM KRZ. The station was sold in 1999 to Entercom Communications.[8]
Entercom received Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval in 2003 to move co-owned WAMT (103.1 FM, now WILK-FM) from Freeland to Avoca. As a condition of the move, Entercom agreed to change the city of license of WKRZ from Wilkes-Barre to Freeland due to FCC concerns about the "loss of local service" to Freeland because of the WAMT move. In practice, the only change was the legal station identification.[9] The studios remained in Wilkes-Barre and the transmitter remains in Bear Creek Township.
Stations
One full-power station simulcasts the programming of WKRZ:
This station was originally assigned the WPMR call sign on November 29, 1989. The call sign was changed to WPMR-FM on March 11, 1992[10] and was off the air but began a simulcast of WKRZ in 1995.[11] Its call sign was changed to WKRF on May 15, 1995.[10]
Signal note
WKRZ is short-spaced to WYCRRocky 98.5 (licensed to serve York-Hanover, Pennsylvania) as they operate on the same channel and the distance between the stations' transmitters is 110 miles as determined by FCC rules.[12] The minimum distance between two Class B stations operating on the same channel according to current FCC rules is 150 miles.[13]
