History
The station went on the air March 3, 1980,[2] as WDCI on 1590.[3] In the intervening years, the station would change its call letters to WASY and then WJBQ, the latter after coming into common ownership with WLAM (1470 AM) and WKZS (99.9 FM; now WTHT).[3] WJBQ moved to 870 kHz in 1988;[3] on this frequency, the station became WKZN on November 28, 1989, and then swapped call letters with WLAM on December 26, 1990.[4] The two stations eventually began simulcasting a standards format.[5] On April 2, 1993, WLAM began simulcasting on WJTO in Bath under a local marketing agreement;[6][7] the arrangement ended in August 1995.[8]
Wireless Talking Machine Company sold WLAM, 1470 (by then WZOU), and WLAM-FM (106.7 FM, which had launched in 1996 as an FM simulcast of the stations;[5] it is now WXTP), along with 99.9 (by then WMWX) and WTHT (107.5 FM; now WFNK) to Harron Communications, then-owner of WMTW-TV, in 1999.[9] On May 7, 2001, Harron converted 870 and 106.7 to news/talk as WMTW.[10] The WLAM call letters were then returned to 1470, which initially retained the standards format; on November 26, the station was switched to a simulcast of WMTW.[11] Shortly afterwards, talk programming was removed from the stations in favor of an all-news format, mainly from the Associated Press's All-News Radio service.[12]
After Harron sold its Maine radio stations to Nassau Broadcasting Partners in 2004, Newsradio WMTW was discontinued that April. Nassau introduced three separate formats to the stations,[13] with WMTW switching to progressive talk from Air America Radio under the call letters WLVP.[14] Nassau first attempted to drop progressive talk for ESPN Radio in September 2004; this sparked listener protest, prompting Nassau to initially postpone the format change to November 8[15] before canceling it entirely.[16] However, after significant changes occurred at Air America (including the departure of Al Franken), WLVP began airing ESPN Radio on June 1, 2007.[17]
WLVP and WLAM dropped ESPN Radio on February 2, 2009, and switched to oldies.[18] In conjunction with the change, the stations began to simulcast WCSH's morning and early evening newscasts, a move made to continue the newscasts' availability via radio even after WCSH's own 87.7 MHz audio was discontinued following the shutdown of analog television signals.[18][19]
Initially locally programmed, in early 2010 WLVP and WLAM became affiliates of The True Oldies Channel.[20] Additionally, on August 2, the station added The Jeff Santos Show from WWZN in Boston (marking a partial return to progressive talk programming).[21] The stations' format was modified once more on August 6, 2011, when sports talk was readded to the weekend schedule via locally-produced shows from the Maine Sports Network (which previously provided some weekend programming to WJJB-FM).[22]
WLVP, along with 16 other Nassau stations in northern New England, was purchased at bankruptcy auction by WBIN Media Company, a company controlled by Bill Binnie, on May 22, 2012. Binnie already owned WBIN-TV in Derry, New Hampshire.[23][24] The deal was completed on November 30, 2012.[25] In June 2014, WLVP and WLAM switched to Cumulus Media's Good Time Oldies service after Cumulus ended distribution of The True Oldies Channel.[26]
On December 9, 2015, Binnie agreed to sell WLAM and WLVP to Blue Jey Broadcasting Company, controlled by Bob Bittner, for $135,000; the deal made WLVP a sister station to WJTO in Bath.[27] The sale to Blue Jey Broadcasting was consummated on February 17, 2016. Upon takeover of WLVP and WLAM, the stations' format evolved to a playlist similar to (but separate from) WJTO,[28] and the simulcast of WCSH news programming was discontinued. By 2021, WLVP and WLAM had become separately programmed and automated from their transmitter sites, though continuing to feature a similar playlist of soft adult contemporary and standards to Bittner's flagship network of WJTO, WJIB in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and WBAS on Cape Cod.[29]
Owner Bob Bittner died in May 2023.[30] WLVP went silent in October 2024; its suspension of operations came several months before operator Bob Perry announced a subsequently-postponed April 2025 closure of sister stations WJTO and WLAM.[31]