FM98 WJLB, Detroit (1990)

Unused bumper sticker from the 1990, sheet measures approximately 22.5 cm by 7.5 cm.
Front side: background: navy; text: "Detroit's Strongest Songs"; WJLB logo; the muscular arm.
Back side: Coats for Kids, Little Caesars Pizza discount coupon.


WJLB (FM98) is a mainstream urban radio station in Detroit, Michigan, USA that broadcasts on 97.9 MHz.

WJLB, along with sister WMXD (Mix 92.3), broadcast for 20 years in Detroit's Penobscot Building in the heart of the financial district. Clear Channel moved both stations to a building in Farmington Hills in November 2009. WJLB's transmitter is located in Highland Park near the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Midland Street, and transmits its signal from an antenna 489 feet in height with an effective radiated power of 50,000 watts. FM98 can be heard far north as Flint and as far west as Lansing on I-96, and past Jackson west on Interstate 94. WJLB can be heard farther distances at night, as is typical in radio.

The station traces its origins to a testing station which began operations on May 7, 1941, with 1,000 watts of power at 44.9 megahertz frequency. On May 24, it officially began broadcasting as W49D, Michigan's second FM radio station. It was owned by John Lord Booth. WJLB = W John Lord Booth.

On September 12, 1945, W49D was assigned a full-powered frequency at 96.5 MHz and renamed WLOU. In June 1948, the station moved up to the 97.9 frequency as WMZK, which was a play on the word music, with a format of automated beautiful music. In later years, WMZK alternated between beautiful music and foreign-language programming for various ethnic groups.

In 1980, the WJLB callsign migrated back to the FM dial along with an urban contemporary format from the AM 1400 kHz frequency. WJLB-AM, which went on the air as WMBC in 1926 and adopted the WJLB callsign in 1939, had been providing programming geared toward Detroit's black community for nearly four decades.

Now, the stereo FM station became "FM98 WJLB, Detroit's Strongest Songs". WJLB-AM 1400 continued to program to the African-American community in Detroit for nearly a quarter-century afterward as WQBH, and is now WDTK, owned by Salem Communications with a conservative news/talk format. Within a few years, WJLB-FM performed well in the Detroit Arbitron ratings, despite picking up competition from several competitors including WHYT (Power 96), which was mostly dance and Top 40 but in 1992 would flip to "96.3 Jamz" and aired a rhythmic contemporary format, and then in 1996 at the 105.9 frequency, the former jazz-formatted WJZZ, which became WCHB-FM "The Beat" and later WDTJ "105.9 Jamz" (now urban AC-formatted WDMK "105.9 Kiss FM"). FM98 was famous for its specialty Friday mix shows with "Electrifying Mojo" and the "Sunday Night Segue," hosted by John "Johnny Smooth" Edwards, featuring classic "Quiet Storm" tracks.

In April 1994, Booth American Company merged with Broadcast Alchemy to become Secret Communications. In August, Chancellor Media acquired the station from Secret Communications. In 1997, Chancellor Media and Evergreen, which already owned WKQI "Q95-5" and WMGC later merged to form AMFM, Inc. In November 1999, AMFM, Inc. was purchased by Clear Channel Communications. WJLB and sister station WMXD have been under the Clear Channel banner ever since. Over the last several years, WJLB has shifted to a more younger demo playlist with more Hip Hop and less Urban and Old school and House Music which the station was built on in the 1990s and through 2005.

WJLB's HD2 side channel features a Motown oldies format known as "The Sounds of Detroit," which changed from a Classic Hip-Hop format in the fall of 2013.

*source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WJLB