WCLZ


WCLZ is a radio station licensed to North Yarmouth, Maine with studios located in Portland, Maine. Since 2001 WCLZ has been broadcasting an Adult Alternative format. It operates on FM frequency 98.9 and is under ownership of Saga Communications.

Programming

WCLZ operates 24 hours a day with an Adult Album Alternative format.

History

The 98.9 frequency debuted on April 11, 1965 as WCME-FM, licensed to Brunswick, Maine about 30 miles north of Portland. The station began as a simulcast of WCME. The stations played middle of the road and aired local information. The WCME-AM-FM call sign eventually became WKXA-AM-FM. By 1980, WKXA-FM was a full-time country music station with an 80,000 watt signal which was easily heard in Portland and was giving established country station WPOR some competition. The WCLZ call letters were installed on 98.9 in 1984, when the station picked up an adult contemporary format. Several years later, the station adopted the Adult Album Alternative format for which it is known today.
The WCLZ call letters remained on 98.9 until 1999, when the station was sold from Fuller-Jeffrey Broadcasting to Citadel Communications. Following the sale, the WCLZ call letters and format moved to 95.5, and 98.9 became WTPN "98.9 The Point", with a modern hot adult contemporary format. The call letters and format of WCLZ returned to the frequency in 2001, after 95.5 became WJJB-FM and began simulcasting sports programming from WJAE and WJJB.
WCLZ was sold to Saga Communications in 2007 after the FCC required Citadel to sell two Portland stations due to the company's acquisition of ABC Radio. The other station sold was WCYI in Lewiston, Maine, which for a time simulcast WCLZ, when held in The Last Bastion Station Trust, LLC, the trust Citadel set up to sell the two Portland stations, as well as several other stations across the United States in order to get under the market cap. Several of WCLZ's shows moved to WBLM and other Citadel owned stations before the transfer into the trust.