WULM

WULM "Radio Maria" 1600-AM (for "Under (Our) Lady's Mantle") is an American non-commercial AM radio station licensed in Springfield, Ohio serving the Springfield and Dayton area with Catholic insprational programming . It operates at 1600 kHz with a power output of 1,000 watts daytime and with a reduced power of 34 watts nighttime. It is a repeater of KJMJ 580 kHz in Alexandria, Louisiana,the originating English language station of Radio Maria USA.

History

WULM's history dates back to 1946 when it was founded as commercial daytime station WJEL. At the time of its founding, the station was licensed in nearby Dayton, Ohio. Country music singer Donnie Bowser (Bowshier),a Springfield resident performed frequently on WJEL's live Saturday night program. In 1954, the station was moved to Springfield and was given new call letters: WBLY,which previously had been used by the present-day WIMA in Lima, Ohio. This move was nearly coincidental with the move of Springfield station WWSO to Dayton, where it became WAVI (now known as the AM incarnation of WDAO formerly at 107.7 FM). WBLY's studios were first located at 1711 West Main Street along with sister WBLY-FM which would later become WAZU (formerly WJEM,the FM sister to the original WJEL.)

The station used the call letters WBLY from 1954 to 2002. It was owned and operated by Champion City Broadcasting which in the mid 1980s moved its studios to the restored (original) city building located downtown along with WAZU-FM prior to being sold off in the 1990s leaving WBLY without an FM. Bob Yontz sold the remaining AM station to son Ronald- hence Champion City Broadcasting became RAY (Ronald A. Yontz) Broadcasting operated by Jerry Staggs as part of a local marketing agreement with WIZE which he briefly owned and moving the WBLY studios to the WIZE site until 2002 when it was sold to Urban Light Ministries, a local non-denominational Christian charity in April 2002 which adopted the WULM call letters in August of that same year. Urban Light's purchase of the station kept it a locally owned and operated community citizen and was intended to help provide operating funds and a medium for the local ministry to reach out to pre-believers and to families in need. WULM remained the last locally owned/operated commercial radio station licensed by the FCC to Springfield still operating with studios and offices in Springfield until May 31 2008.

John Hall(Stalder), a long time Springfield radio broadcast legend was the first station manager of WULM from 2002 to 2003. After Hall's passing in 2004 ,the on-air studio originally used by WIZE was renovated in 2005 and dedicated in his memory by his longtime friend Bob Pitsch who was station manager from 2003 to 2006. Hall was best known as the long time morning personality at WIZE and later a personality at WKSW,WLW,WGRR,WBNS (AM) and the former WCLR/WZLR "Oldies 95" in addition to doing voice-over work for the former WTJC-TV (now WBDT) and for numerous radio commercials and announcements in the Dayton-Springfield area.

WBLY FM

Now WDHT (Hot 102.9), WBLY-FM was founded in 1958 and broadcast at 102.9 on the dial. It was a simulcast of WBLY-AM from 1958-1979 and played the same middle of the road format as WBLY-AM. It was also owned by Champion City Broadcasting. In 1979 they changed the call letters to WAZU ("FM-103 The Zoo...From A to Z to You") and stopped simulcasting WBLY-AM and began playing adult contemporary music aimed at the Dayton audience. At that time it was licensed to Springfield and had the same studios as WBLY. In the late 1980s, one of the principal owners died. The heirs had the station appraised and found it to be worth millions of dollars. The station went on the market and was sold to Osborne Communications. From 1988-1995 the station competed fiercely with WTUE-FM but in 1995 it was sold to Great Trails Broadcasting and its call letters where changed to WING and it played classic rock from 1995-2001. It was known as WING-FM and had the same format until 2001 when it was sold to Radio One and changed changed to its current call sign WDHT and its urban format, "Blazin Hip Hop and R&B". Mainline Broadcasting took over the station in 2007. The WING call letters are still in use (and were in use before WING-FM) by "ESPN Radio 1410", or WING-AM

Past Programming

WULM has had many different formats over the years since it started broadcasting. Originally country(as WJEL) when it was founded, when it was sold to a group of local businessmen and the call letters were changed to WBLY for the principals - Bailey, Lucas and Yontz. The station operated at 1600 kHz with 1000 watts of power from sunrise to sunset. During winter months, WBLY was authorized to operate at 250 watts from 6:00 AM until sunrise. The format was changed to talk in the morning along with music, with its host Smilin' Bob (Bob Yontz) and was a MOR station (Middle of the Road) the rest of the day. Smilin Bob remained a personality on the station through the 70's and into the early 90's. He became greatly known all around the valley. He was famous for giving all of his callers a nickname, and he handed out many. WBLY also aired a Sunday morning big band program hosted by Roger Sharp that was the top rated program in its time slot for the Dayton area. Upon Sharp's death in 1989, the Sunday morning progam was hosted by Tom Eipper (airname Tom James). In 1981 WBLY changed its format to classic country and switching to oldies in 1987 and the following year it was "sold" to Yontz's son Ron, who operated RAY broadcasting. In 1988 WBLY moved its tower from its former AM-friendly location off West First Street to a more FM-friendly location on Miller Road. The tower move increased WAZU's coverage in the Dayton area, but was detrimental to the AM station. Also in 1988 WBLY (which was a "daytime" station) received authorization to operate 24 hours per day. The authorized power from sunset to sunrise was 30 watts. To celebrate, and in keeping with the format, staff members Dale Grimm and Jim Mosier were on the air for 24 continuous hours, operating from the station's "street studio" on the first floor of the Marketplace on South Fountain Avenue.

WBLY switched the format to a news/sports/talk format in the early 1990s. WBLY did mostly Catholic Central games until WIZE went under and then began airing all teams in Clark County. It was famous for not only having 1 game but in football and basketball it aired one game live and one game on tape delay. It also did Wittenberg football and basketball games along with a show during the week. It also had a high school sports talk show during the week and a popular show on Saturday morning called "Sports Scene". During the tournament it would air all local teams' games, and sometimes there would be so many teams playing that they would go until 2:00 am. They also had great news coverage, and the news director was Darrel Bauer, who is now at WHIO.

In 2002 WBLY was sold to Urban Light Ministries. After they changed the call letter to WULM they continued to have a news/sports/talk format but added more programming including a local morning talk show and a late-morning talk show that talked about the issues in Clark County. After that sports director Marty Bannister continued his "Sports Scene" show that he aired during the week and had done before when it was WBLY. They also added more network programming, including Bill O'Reilley.

Unable to attract new listeners (and advertisers) with a talk format, WULM went to a unique "Rock n' Soul Classics" format. It spotlighted the vintage hits from the first generation of the Top 40 and R&B genres. During this time, its weekend programs along with NASCAR coverage included The Motown Show, Dennis Mitchell's Breakfast With The Beatles, Oldies Coast To Coast, Little Walter's Time Machine, Glenn Sauter's Hits of Yesteryear and Cool Bobby B's Doo Wop Stop. That format ran from the summer of 2003 to the spring of 2006.

On-air personalities included Marco Simmons, Dale Grimm (also Sales Manager),Joe Madigan (then a student intern from John Carroll University and its campus FM station WJCU) and Bob Roberts (Bob Pitsch, General Manager).

They then switched to "Springfield's Sunshine Station" with a format of "The Fun Hits of the late 60s 70's and early 80s"; which played Top 40 hits of those decades from April of 2006 until February of 2007 when they changed the slogan to "Springfield's Community Station", keeping the 60's/70's music format until September of 2007.

1600 WULM (as "Springfield's Community Station" from 2007 to 2008) aired Chrstian-oriented News/Talk from the USA Radio Network. They carried nearly all of their entire talk programming schedule as well as their news and sports updates.

Besides the USA Radio Network WULM continued providing great local sports coverage. It aired a sports program on Saturday morning from 9:00-10:30, which is hosted by long time WULM sports personalities Dave Williams, (The Coach) Jim Scoby, and John Derr. The "Saturday Morning Sports Show" (formally The Springfield Sports Show) had local high school sports talk along with Ohio State and Wittenberg talk in college sports. In professional, the Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals are covered in the NFL and the Cleveland Indians and the Cincinnati Reds are covered in the MLB. The program also featured interviews with local sports personalities (most recently James Laurnitis of the Buckeyes). During Ohio State football they aired an Ohio State football show live on Thursday nights from Joe's 40 US Highway Grille in Springfield as well as carrying all the Buckeye games through The Ohio State Football Radio Network. WULM also carried Ohio State basketball through the Ohio State Basketball Radio Network. They also, of course (as they have for over 15 years), WULM featured live play-by-play coverage of local high school sports with Williams doing the play-by-play calling and Scoby covering the commentator duties.

WULM had a history of sending their sports department people a long way. Former sports director Marty Bannister is now a sideline reporter on the Ohio State Football Radio Network and is also the voice of Ohio State Women's basketball. Scott Leo, a former play-by-play man and talk show host for four years at WULM, is now the voice of the Columbus Clippers and does play-by-play high school football for WONE/WIZE in the fall. He also covers Wittenberg football, basketball, and baseball for Wittenberg's student station. WULM also had local programming. One such program was Urban Light Ministries president Rev. Eli Williams' mid-morning (10:00) talk program "Crossing Over" dealing with local people and issues from a Christian and local community perspective. Rev. Williams is also the host of "Urban Light Radio" a contemporary gospel music program which aired on WULM during Sunday morning programming.It still can be heard on Saturdays on Cedarville University's WCDR-FM and on its "CDR Radio" network of repeaters and translators as well as its online stream.

WULM also served the community with Speak Out a locally produced community forum/on air town meeting on Saturday mornings after The Saturday Morning Sports Show for 10:30 to 12:00 which invited listeners input to local issues. The show, hosted and moderated by Larry Spicer has had guests such as political figures such as Steve Austria and Ross Megregor and countless others as well as people from local events ranging from the Enon Apple Butter Festival to Shawnee's High School Band Festival to the Farmer's Market at the Heritage Center.

Station's studios and offices are located on Miracle Mile in Springfield, at the transmitter site and former studios of WIZE (now simulcasting the programming of WONE in Dayton; which itself is now a relay for WCKY in Cincinnati). Its transmitter is located on Miller Road off State Route 41 West which is also the transmitting site of WDHT-FM..originally the site of the former WBLY-AM and WAZU-FM, which was the former WBLY-FM, when both stations were owned by Champion City Broadcasting.

Switchover to Radio Maria

According to a Springfield News-Sun story dated March 10 2008,the station was purchased by Radio Maria,an Italian-based Catholic radio network which owns and operates KJMJ,it's originating USA English language station in Alexandria, Louisiana. The sale and transfer of license of WULM was filed on February 15 2008 and was later approved on April 16 2008 by the FCC. The switchover to Radio Maria programming took place at 12 noon Eastern Standard Time on Saturday May 31 2008. The WULM signal not only reaches the Dayton, Springfield and Miami Valley area, but reaches east towards Columbus, south towards Wilmington and Middletown,north towards Urbana and Bellefontaine and west towards Richmond, Indiana during daylight hours. An audiostream also can be accessed from its website for its listeners during evening hours and outside its signal area.

Originating station KJMJ has been on the air as the US flagship station of Radio Maria since May 2000. Originally, the 580 frequency was home to KALB (AM) sister station to KALB-TV channel 5.

Radio Maria was founded at first with humble beginnings as a small parish operated station in Como, Italy in 1983 before its subsequent international growth in the 1990s which gave birth to the World Family in 1998. Emanuele Ferrario is Radio Maria's founder and president.

Facilities and programming

The Miller Road transmitter site shared with WDHT-FM is still in use. Though WULM along with WHJM-FM licensed in Anna (serving the Upper Miami Valley and greater Lima area) for the most part is a repeater of KJMJ, there are several locally originating programs including Francesca Franchina's "From The Tummy To The Heart" and "Francesca and Friends" from The University of Dayton and Glenda Canfield's Bible study program "At Home With Jesus" originating from Beavercreek. Future plans will include some local programs from the Springfield studios and from Dayton. The Miracle Mile studios(at present) are currently not yet in full use except for broadcasting the originating network feed from Alexandria's KJMJ at this time.

Spanish language programming geared to the local Hispanic community is aired on Saturday mornings from 11:30 am until 1pm local time.

A fundraising "Mariathon" moderated by Father Stenzel is scheduled for October 14,15 and 16 of 2008 to procure additional operating funds for WULM,its sister stations and audiostream. The World Family of Radio Maria's mission is to venture forward to start additional stations worldwide and no longer provides supplimental funding for KJMJ,its repeaters and other USA operations...hence the need for additional local support.

Mary Pyper is local station coordinator, Alicia Risko is volunteer coordinator, Jim Meyer is remote broadcast technician and John Koenig is local station manager.

The WBLY calls are currently used by a low-power FM station in Sycamore, Georgia.

The WJEL calls are currently used by a high school FM station in Indianapolis, Indiana