WBMI 1055 Back on the Air

[BayCityJohn2337]

WBMI West Branch is back with the ever popular country gold format. (Dial Global Satellite Feed)
The station appears to be running at reduced power. No local spots airing, but a station ID at the top of the hour.

[bmw]

They're definitely running on reduced power. Here in Tawas City, before going silent, they used to have a marginally listenable car radio signal. Now there's barely a smattering when driving through town - barely more of a smattering than WWCK normally reaches here. On stronger DX days, CK 105 is the dominant signal.

[Deleted User 4520]

They no longer have a website.

[BayCityJohn2337]

It appears WBMI Is back up to full power. Signal is getting out to towns like Standish and Tawas great.

[Ben Zonia]

Here's my idea-Interstate 105.5, a 105.5 simulcast serving the I-75 Corridor from Toledo to Houghton Lake. Get a format worth hearing and put it on WQQO Sylvania, buy W288BK Rochester Hills (best with an upgrade and as an AM translator), WWCK-FM Flint, and buy WBMI West Branch.

[Realist]

Nah - it would be great if the owners of Oscoda’s Thunder Rock 100.7 bought it and simulcast the signal over there. According to Radio Locater, there’s only one classic rock station that reaches that area - Q100 from Grayling - and they have a very eccentric format anyway.

[Realist]

Have you listened to UPS lately? While it’s somewhat rock leaning, they have enough over played hits from the 70’s and 80’s in their very tight playlist. I can only listen to short doses of it before a crappy song comes on.

[bmw]

I miss the WUPS of the late 90s-early 2000s. At the time they were criticized repeatedly on these forums for being a "trainwreck" but I thoroughly enjoyed their deep playlist of everything from 80s to Hot AC to adult CHR to even some alternative-leaning stuff. They were very quick to add new stuff that literally nobody else was playing yet too. They even aired for a brief stint a syndicated rhythmic show hosted by Shadoe Stevens (The World Atomic Rhythm Party).

[ChrisWL1980]

I thought the station was well-done during their "big mix of the '80s and '90s" phase circa 1998. I recall some rhythmic hits like Brandy & Monica's "The Boy Is Mine" and Next's "Too Close" even in regular rotation then. It sounded pretty well put together even though I only got to hear that era once or twice. It was nice having another option on the dial for contemporary music alongside KHQ, The Peak, Bay 108 and what was then Z95 (now Eagle 101.5) when I vacationed in the Gaylord area. FWIW, seems to me they were doing something not unlike what WCDY in Cadillac does these days. Even CDY has a syndicated hip-hop show on Saturday nights (or at least did last I listened).

Not long afterward was the UPS "AOR" (All Over the Road) era where one could hear songs like "Take a Picture" by Filter, "A Little Respect" by Erasure, and "Magic Bus" by The Who all in the same hour. At times it was almost like a more polished version of Cruise 102 in Bad Axe. While that era has its detractors (I enjoyed it personally, but I prefer wider playlists), at least it didn't have jocks referring to Lindsey Buckingham as a "she." LOL

FWIW, I recall WBMI as a satellite-fed oldies station (Jones?) in that era.

[bmw]

So were there 2 phases to their current music era or just 1? I seem to remember their format being fairly consistent throughout their entire time that I listened to them play current hits (roughly 1998 through 2001) - I remember specifically that they'd do a "30 minute music marathon" every hour, starting at about 5 minutes before the top of the hour and capping off with a brand new song at about :20 past the hour (yes, I listened to that station obsessively for a few years, enough to notice those kinds of details), and they'd play one or two 80s songs per hour (usually referred to as a "retro replay"). I know that at least the latter half of that era used the "we deliver the hits" moniker, but I don't remember if it started out with that. I don't think I ever listened in 1996 or 1997, though I do very vaguely remember the "boring" era of the mid 1990s MW is referring to (I was pretty young then and think I stumbled across it a time or two on the dial before I ever even knew of the existence of this station).

Most memorable to me was the once-per-hour new song they'd play, a lot of that stuff they took a gamble on that ended up being songs that never charted well but gave some unique variety to the station; some specific songs I remember were:
-Neve - It's Over Now
-Paula Cole - I Believe in Love
-Green Day - Warning
-Jude - Rick James
-Def Leppard - Now
-No Doubt - Simple Kind of Life

...just to name a few.
Their format certainly wasn't perfect - they played too much Madonna (her current stuff at the time), boy and girl band stuff, Bon Jovi, Ricky Martin, Kid Rock, etc, but it was never enough to make me change the station.

Then sometime I think in fall of 2002 they ditched their rhythmic product entirely as well as a good chunk (though not all) of their rock-leaning currents and put 70s music back into the rotation. I remember emailing them complaining about the change and getting a fairly blunt response along the lines of "most of our listeners complain about the new music we play and quite frankly our decision to ever go this direction in the first place was perhaps a mistake."

[ftballfan]

In the mid 90's, there was no current based rock station, no CHR/Pop station with a signal worth a damn (WKHQ and WKPK could be heard in parts of town with a very good receiver), and barely a Hot AC station (102.3 from Big Rapids) available in Cadillac. Other than a Modern AC station disguised as alternative rock (95.5 The Zone) or Country, there was no outlet for trendy music on the FM dial.

I could only imagine the Ludington/Manistee area being even worse at the time. The only CHR/Pop that even put a fringe signal into either was WIXX (WKHQ and WKPK might have been doable at times). WMOM had yet to arrive, Wild 99.7 was several years away, and WKLA was Hot AC.