 | |
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|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Nashville metropolitan area |
| Frequency | 107.5MHz (HD Radio) |
| Branding | 107.5 The River |
| Programming | |
| Language | English |
| Format | Contemporary hit radio |
| Affiliations | Premiere Networks |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | August 31, 1962 (63 years ago) (1962-08-31) |
Former call signs |
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Former frequencies | 107.3 MHz (1962–1982)[1] |
Call sign meaning | River, reference to theCumberland River |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 59824 |
| Class | C1 |
| ERP | 46,000 watts |
| HAAT | 409 meters (1,342 ft) |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen live (viaiHeartRadio) |
| Website | 1075theriver |
WRVW (107.5FM) is a radio station licensed to the city ofLebanon, Tennessee, but serving the nearbyNashville market. It is currently branded as107.5 The River, broadcasting acontemporary hit radio format, and has become something of aheritage station for Top 40 music in middle Tennessee. It is owned byiHeartMedia and operates out of studios in the "Music Row" area. Its transmitter is located just north of downtown Nashville.
The station signed on the air on August 31, 1962, as WCOR-FM on 107.3 MHz inLebanon, Tennessee as the FM sister station toWCOR.[1] It played acountry music format for its first 19 years on the air. The station also broadcast someSouthern gospel music programming in the middle and late 1970s.[3] By 1980, it branded itself as US107 and changed itscallsign to WUSW. This station proved to be short-lived; its absentee owner shut it down along with itsAM sister, WCOR, in mid-1981. It was sold, moved to Nashville, and had its frequency changed to 107.5 in order to accommodate a power increase (theFCC ruled out a power increase for 107.3 because of its proximity toWQLT-FM inFlorence, Alabama, which is also on 107.3).
The station received a complete overhaul when it moved to 107.5 FM in 1982, and went on to become one of Nashville's most successful radio stations. When the move was complete, the callsign was changed to WYHY. Those call letters and the station's official brandingY107 lasted from 1982 until 1996.
Initially under its new incarnation, Y107 broadcastadult contemporary music. Within a few years, however, WYHY became aTop 40/CHR station, competing with two other similar stations,KX 104 FM (WWKX) and96 Kiss FM (WZKS). Desiring a dose of attitude, craziness, and most of all fun, WYHY hiredCoyote McCloud from WWKX in 1984 and launched a new morning show titledCoyote McCloud and The Y107 Morning Zoo Crew orThe Y Morning Zoo for short. WYHY quickly became more aggressive in its programming approach and promoted itself asThe Outrageous FM. This format, which very edgy for their time but tame by current day standards, was popular among babies kids and most importantly teens as well for its targeted demographic young adults. However, the antics of WYHY did disgust the much older yet more conservative area residents, and WYHY even became the subject of a report onCBS'48 Hours about "shock radio". During this time, however, WYHY enjoyed enormous popularity across the board, and was regularly Nashville's highest-rated radio station.
By the early 1990s, WYHY's act wore thin as teenage tastes began changing toalternative rock, and WYHY's popularity began to decline. Ratings went down as was the case for most Top 40/CHR stations across America around that time, and WYHY no longer impressed advertisers as a result. After a brief stint with a rock-leaning Top 40/CHR format in April 1993, failed to improve ratings, the station quickly reverted to mainstream contemporary hits. Around this time, the station entered alocal marketing agreement with SFX Broadcasting and became a sister station toWSIX-FM. SFX eventually purchased WYHY outright and made some wholesale changes to the station.[4] The "Outrageous FM" era was over as the station again took a more straight forward approach to make it more palatable to advertisers. Despite the changes, the Y107 branding still carried a negative connotation among local businesses due to the sheer number of crazy stunts that WYHY pulled in order to get publicity earlier in its life. WYHY also had its lowest ratings in over 10 years during the mid-1990s. Additionally, Coyote and most of the Y107 airstaff, as well their mascot the Tookie Bird, left the station in early 1995. These factors led management to completely overhaul and rebrand the station.
On February 15, 1996, at 3 p.m., air personality Gator Harrison was joined in the studio by pop artistLisa Loeb, and the station changed its branding to "107.5 The River", and its format tohot adult contemporary. A few days later, the callsign changed to WRVW.[5] Over the next few years, however, the station's format gradually returned to Top 40. The station, to this day, still promotes itself as "The River". After a series of ownership changes, WRVW was acquired by Clear Channel Communications (nowiHeartMedia). The station's long-time flagship show wasWoody and Jim in the Morning, hosted by Woody Wood and Jim Chandler, who previously worked together at stations inAlbany, New York, andSan Diego, before departing the station in May 2023. The staff had been remarkably consistent through the Rich Davis era but changed after his departure. Rich Davis, who joined from WZEE inMadison in 2000, was the operations manager/program director until late 2011.
WRVW broadcasts in theHD format:
From 2009 until January 1, 2020, WRVW broadcast an HD2 signal. It first began under the branding "Future Radio" until 2012, when the name changed to "Hit Nation Radio". The HD2 signal was discontinued temporarily on January 1, 2020, because of budget constraints at owner iHeartMedia.[6] In mid-2020, WRVW's iHeart sister WLAC began simulcasting on the HD2 signal. In late November 2022, WRVW stopped simulcasting WLAC on the HD2 signal and changed the format to 24/7 Christmas music. It was noticed on January 1, 2023, that the HD2 signal had been taken off the air again.
36°15′50″N86°47′38″W / 36.264°N 86.794°W /36.264; -86.794