The Big Day: WBT moves to 107.9-FM (12-11-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. One O seven point nine FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk. Today is the day we flip the switch and apparently nothing broke, which is as I advise at the end of every show, don't break anything while I'm gone. I am glad to hear that the team of expert engineers did not break anything when they flipped everything over. They did it all seamlessly, perfectly. It seems good job to them. It really took a lot of people. Folks don't understand, like when you when you flip this stuff over on to a different signal and you're moving the amount of stations that Urban One has moved in the Charlotte market, it is a massive undertaking. And it went over at midnight so I know it was a late night for a lot of people, and thank you very much David and even Ron coming out of retirement to help out. We'll appreciate all of the work. There are a bunch of other people. I shouldn't even have started naming them because now I'm going to forget people. But thank you to everybody that made this happen. And look, I understand it's a bittersweet day and change I get it. I will say though, this is not my first time on one oh seven point nine FM. In fact, I dare say I may have more airtime on one oh seven point nine FM than any other of the hosts in our lineup because back in my day, well it's actually still my day, so back in one of my earlier days, many of my earlier days. Actually the day it started was nine to eleven. I was in the WBT newsroom, our sister station one oh seven point nine the link their afternoon drive time team was Matt and Ramona, and Matt Ramona came in and asked me can I come into the studio and do an update for them, just, you know, like a one minute, one and a half minute newscast kind of a thing, and because it was obviously, you know, a great national tragedy and huge story and everybody was covering it, and so I said sure, and I you know, jumped over there and started what began a daily live newscast with Matt Ramona. And that then, uh you know, continued for about seven years and the segment grew from a minute or two into a full half hour daily segment with Matt Ramona. So if you are a longtime listener to one oh seven point nine FM back when Matt and Ramona were on in the afternoons, you may remember me by a name that they gave me, which was Pete the pit Bull. That's what they called me, and it came from our boss at the time. During there was they gave me an award one year and the boss, Rick Jackson, had described me as a pit bull that once I got onto a story because at that point I was a news reporter. And then he said, when he gets onto the story, he does his story. He doesn't let go. He's like a pit bull. And now I'm like that with Steak, just mainly just Steak. But so that's what so Matt Ramona started calling me that, and so it became this whole segment, and I did that for several years. And I bring this up because that really was my first experience, I guess, being part of a talk show because up until that point I had only done news reporting, and I continued on as a news reporter, but as I would be on the air with Matt and Ramona and they would ask me questions about you because I would go in there and do you know, just a couple of headlines not because it was only a minute or two newscasts. So I would do a couple of headlines that kind of thing, and then they would ask me questions about stuff, so then I would have to answer the questions or so then I was like, I need to be better prepared when I go in. So that taught me show prep. So now I'm going in there and Matt would ask me questions, usually crazy off the wall questions, which I would then try to plan for. Okay, what's the craziest question somebody could ask me about this story? I think the first time that this really erupted there was a story that I had done about the use of goats being used to pack in supplies and stuff with the US military going into Afghanistan, and Matt thought that was the most hilarious thing that he had ever heard, and so he had a lot of questions about the mule train. But it really was like I really did learn a lot about being a host by sitting in with two professionals like Matt Ramona. And from there then I became a host on WBT nine to midnight. And then we got bought and sold or I guess, yeah, well same process. Really, company came in bought all of the Charlotte stations. Well, the ownership got bought by Lincoln Financial. Then Lincoln Financial sold off the Charlotte properties. The new company that bought us then I think they real lies. They paid way too much money because they really wanted the properties, and then they couldn't afford to keep everybody, so I got fired, along with a bunch of other people. There's a bit of a blood letting that over the next year. Then I went up to Asheville. I worked up in Asheville for about eight years as a host, and then I came back and so here I am. And then after my arrival, now they they move as a new corporate owner, Urban one, and Urban one has decided We're going to move WBT to one oh seven point nine FM, Charlotte's FM News Talk, And I am happy about the move, but I am also kind of you know, there's legacy and history with the eleven ten am signal, but I will tell you that, you know, over years, the signal it's you know, it's difficult to listen to a lot of times. Some nights it's really good. And this gets into sort of the sign of the of the radio waves. And I'm not a scientist. I'm not an expert in this stuff. I was never like in the weeds on the engineering behind radio waves and frequencies and all of that stuff. But I know that, like I've picked up listeners in that nine to midnight time slot on BT, I picked up listeners up in Jersey. They you know, John from New Jersey still participates in the show. He writes, writes in on the text line, which, by the way, the phone numbers are changing. They have changed. So UH, if you've been you know, speed dialing us or we're in your contacts list, you need to update the uh the text line and the call in line same number. UH seven O four five seven oh one oh seven nine seven O four five seven oh one oh seven nine. And by the way, the WBT text line is driven by Liberty Buick GMC. And I say it like that because it just sounds like a powerful truck, you know. So I say it like No one's told me to say it like that. I just say it like that. I just feel like it deserves that kind of you know, does it sound better on the FM when I say it like that? I hope it does. So. Yeah, So I went to Ashville, then came back and now coincidentally, now WBT has moved to one oh seven point nine FM. Now is that a coincidence that they bring me back and then they put yeah, it's totally a coincidence. Actually total coincidence. By the way, you can also tell you're a smart speaker to just play WBT Charlotte and if you just say that, it'll it'll find us. I know there have been a lot of questions. I spent too many hours yesterday on the Facebook, uh, you know, trying to engage with listeners who had questions about what was going to happen and why it's happening and all of this. So I will tell you that Radio one Urban one Radio One is the parent company here, and they will continue to operate the AM signal. Saw somebody make a somebody suggested we donate the signal to the NPR station down Like, I don't think that's happening, but yeah, they're going to continue to operate the AM frequency eleven ten AM. Right now, it's being simulcast on both stations. WBT is on both the eleven ten AM and one oh seven point nine FM, but that will cease at some point in January when the AM frequency will flip to a different format. And by the way, WBT on the eleven ten AM format has flipped formats on that frequency many times over its one hundred and three year history, so that is going to happen sometime in January. I don't know what it's flipping to, but when I find out, I will let you know. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come. Who you are, visit creative video dot com. Okay, so the thing to keep in mind here. Look and again, I understand people are lamenting the the loss of WBT being connected to the eleven ten am frequency. I understand that. Look, I've been saying that frequency with BT's name for twenty five years. The station's been around for over one hundred. But by the way, I think like the frequencies have changed over the years. But to you know, to just kind of go into some of the engineering as I understand it. Again, I'm not an expert, as you will learn on a great many different topics, but as I understand it. You know, AM travels differently than FM. FM kind of runs a long on the ground. AM bounces, so it goes way up in the air and then bounces, and the WBT signal is so strong that it would like bleed over into other stations, particularly one in Omaha. And because of that, they're on the eleven to ten position as well. Decades ago, the government said you can't bleed over into their signal. So they got to protect their signal, and so we had to flip what's called directional and you would hear it when the sun would go down and the sun comes up, you would hear. And that means we're foot and directional, and that means everybody west of Charlotte lost our signal in order to protect that Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha. That's why I will never step foot in Omaha. No. But that sent our signal up and down the east coast. But those are not in our market. Those stations aren't or those places are not in our market. So like the audience that listens on the SKIP on that bounce. They don't count for us. I mean that's just the way. I mean, like, we can't sell advertising to a company in Virginia because after the sun goes down, they can hear our signal. We can't do that. We're a local station. So if you are listening to one oh seven nine and you've not been listening to WBT prior to today, that explains that helped hopefully, this explains why the move was done. And I'm also going to, you know, kind of explain what it is that I do. And look, every host on WBT is different. We are completely live and local from five am until nine pm every weekday, and I'm not aware of any other station that does that, not just here in Charlot. I really, I'm not sure there are other stations that have that kind of a local lineup. So, like this is the most local station that you're going to find. So when they flip the station directional, we lose a lot of the local audience. And so that's why they picked up the ninety nine point three translator. I think it's out of Chester, South Carolina, and it would beam into sort of Gaston County west of Charlotte area. But there's another thing going on here besides the car radios not carrying AM, but also there's a lot of interference now on the AM band from a lot of the modern day tech. It interferes with the signals. It creates problems like I live in West Mecklenburg, and when you know, the sun goes down, I can't hear WBT, and I'm like eight miles away and I'm in this spot where the ninety nine three FM signal doesn't come in very doesn't come in well at all either, So like I can't even listen when the sun goes down. I have no idea what's on the air unless I'm listening on the app, which, by the way, we do have the app. You can listen live on the app as well and on the website WBT dot com. But Urban One Radio one will continue to own and operate eleven ten Am. Again. We're going to simulcast through the end of the year. The eleven ten AM frequency will then be changing formats at some point, I am told in January. And you know, honestly, like this protects the biggest asset that Urban One has in the Charlotte market, which is WBT and we are all i mean the hosts but also management, all very aware of the history. I mean Urban One came in, they acquired cluster of stations, they had a couple already. They acquired the cluster here at Julian Price Place. You know, wfn Z, the Sports Talk, w L and K one oh seven nine, they and WBT. And right after they acquired us, they you know, we were we were fixing to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of WBT. And it would have been very easy for a new ownership to come in and just say, no, we're not doing that. You want to do what now? You want to spend what kind of money on this right you want? And they but they they did not do that. They embraced it, and they you know, they not just allowed it to go forward, They helped it go forward. And it was a great celebration. We had a great time. So they they understand, they're radio people, so they understand the legacy and the heritage. We I mean, we didn't build a hall of fame, the WBT Hall of Fame, and you know, put people's plaques up on the wall just to tear it all down. So that's that's not going to happen. You know, there's a there's a brand with WBT, the brand of BT, and then there's the frequency, and they have overlapped for decades. But I think in order for BT to survive for another one hundred years, it has to it has to get over onto the FM dial. And one one O seven nine is a monster of a stick that has been in our It's right next door. It's like it's been part of this cluster for I don't know how long decades, forty years something. So it just makes sense. And so again, like I get the nostalgia, I get the you know, the sense of loss. I do because I feel it too, But there's also this sense of excitement and like we are now going to be exposed to you know, another eighty percent of people listening to radios that didn't even know the AM band existed. They never went there. So now we have an opportunity to reach more people and talk about how great mayonnaise is. That's just a joke. I'm a big believer in mayo. It's the superior condiment. I'm sure we'll talk about it at some point. Here's a great idea, how about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. 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Okay, some people have been asking about that. That did not occur. Radio One still owns WBT and eleven ten AM. George Soros did not buy that station. He did buy a bunch of shares in Oudyssey, but they don't own us anymore. So he has bought a whole bunch of Hispanic stations. But he did not buy WBT or eleven ten AM or one oh seven nine FM. He didn't buy any of that, Okay. Chris on the text line says, turning on certain lights in our home caused static on the AM station. I happily discovered today. The problem seems to have disappeared with the switch to FM PS Love your Show. Yeah, like that's the I've told this story before. When I first moved to Charlotte, this would have been somewhere around nineteen ninety nine. I want to say, and moved into my little apartment down in Meers Park, plugged in my landline phone and picked it up, you know, as you do to make sure that you got the dial tone, that it's working. And so I picked up the the receiver and I listened in, and I hear WBT on the phone and not like in like a far off, distant, staticy sort of way. I pick it up and I'm listening to it as if I've got an earbud in, like I'm listening on a headset. It was super clear because apparently the wiring in that old apartment building, which I think was probably built around like the fifties or something, all of the wiring act as a massive antenna, and so all the landlines would pick up the AM signal. That's how powerful the signal was. And this was at night, so I don't know. I don't know if it did it as much during the daytime, but yeah, it was powerful. But again, nowadays, there's a lot of interference that comes through the lines because of all of the tech. Shannon says on the text line, this is weird. Can we say that word again, Yes, we can say weird. I never stopped saying weird. I did not allow that word to be co opted by politicians. Weird is weird. People feel free to keep using it here in the Lake Norman area. I've always had to stream to listen to the station. It's good to know though, that when I trek up to Moresville these days, I won't lose the radio signal. Now. Yeah, that's it's good. It's gonna be. It's a good thing, you know. Let me see here to do? All right, that's off, that's off topic. R J. Can you tell us the new format for eleven ten am? I cannot bane not that I because I don't know. I don't know what the format will be. I'm not sure if the people deciding what to do, I don't I'm not sure if they know yet. But obviously they've got some ideas or maybe they maybe they know what they're going to do, but they haven't told me so, and I've asked but and so that, but nobody knows at this point. So right now, it's like, we want to focus on making sure that all of this went well, because this was a massive lift, you know, to try to make sure that all the technology worked properly, and because again, like they moved us from eleven ten AM to one oh seven nine FM, and they moved Mix to one hundred. I'm seeing now I'm gonna mess up the frequencies. They moved them to one hundred point nine and ninety nine point three, which was the WBT translator for Gaston County area Western mech down into Clover. That was praise, praise, then moved to where the block was and the block exited the market. The block was taken off, so they had to move what is that four stations two five stations. I was told there would be no math when I took this gig, so I apologize for that. Coming in loud and clear in Forest City. Very nice. Thank you. By the way, if you when you send a text to the WBT text line driven by Liberty Buick GMC, when you send a text, you can just give us your name so I can put it into the into the little profile thing here, so I don't have to refer to you as like a seven oh four number or anonymous person says, I can just say, like, oh, it's Bete, so like for example, this is uh a four to one zero number from Maryland, So a Maryland man or woman. I guess it could be one oh seven point nine sounds great. I'm an avid eleven ten AM listener. I hope I get coverage eleven ten gave me. I will say also that I used to do when I was working up in Ashville. I could pick up one oh seven point nine FM. It's in the outer bands of the footprint. So I'm back on the air in Ashville. I know I have a large western North Carolina audience from when I was up there, so maybe maybe they'll pick us up again. Jordan says, longtime listener, love your work. It's going to be weird that I used to listen to Michael Jackson and eighties pop on one O seven nine. Now I get my favorite political commentator. Thank you, Jordan. I appreciate that it's only weird if you make it weird. Jordan, Okay, it's only don't make it weird. But I will say in the next segment here, I'll kind of go a little bit deeper, read some more of your text messages as well, but give you a little bit of a flavor. If you've not listened to my program before. First off, that's very hurtful, but also like I'll give you just sort of an idea of how I approach my show. Every host is different, but what my sort of philosophy is and how I approach the show and what kind of content that we do here, and by we I mean me but no, but also producer Nick and Bernie, what we kind of how we focus the show, how you know, the stuff that I'm generally focused on, because all of the shows sound different, mainly because there are different people, you know, doing the shows, and we all have our own opinions about things. We disagree on stuff, and you can disagree too. In fact, I prefer it. My favorite phone calls are with people that don't agree with me, and so like, if you don't agree with me, usually I'm gonna get you on first, I'm gonna put you at the front of the line because I prefer those conversations. I am a former political science guy. In college, I was mass colm broadcast. I went to Winthrop University in Rockhill, and I was a polycy minor and a philosophy They wouldn't give me a double minor. I had enough credits though for it. I had enough credits for a double minor, but they would not offer me a double minor. I'm not better. I swear I'm not bitter about it, maybe just a little. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You could check it out at check dot ground, dot news, slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news, slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground news as they make the media landscape more transparent. Some messages from the WBT text line. Steve says, thank you for the new and stronger FM signal. Pete, welcome to more power. He's got a tim the tool man, Jiff Brett says, I listen to the station for almost forty years, love it and by the way, you do sound taller. Thank you. By the way, for folks who may not have heard the program before, the inclusion of that rim shot is intentional. I put it in there because the all of the data shows that use of the rim shot makes my jokes about fifty seven percent funnier. And I need all the help I can get, so I use the rim shot. I also use the bell just for sometimes no reason at all. No, Usually it's like, yes, I agree, Ding ding ding. You know I use the bell too, So I just want to let people know in case you aren't aware of that. Hmm. Bobby A says with the new WBT on one oh seven point nine FM, Now, do we need special glasses or hats containing foil? No, you can make your own. You can make your own, Bobby. We do not provide any of those to you. But if you do have some of the glasses left over from the I was gonna say soul stife, but that's not correct. It's the eclipse. If you got those eclipse glasses, those can be helpful. Chris wants to know why there is a delay on the one oh seven point nine FM that's longer than the AM signal. I noticed this too this morning when I went around the house and I was switching over all of the all of my old clock radios, and which, by the way, this came at a perfect time for me, not that it's about me, but because I was looking for a new clock radio to put in the bathroom that so it has to be able to like sustain the you know, the humidity of the shower and all of that, but I need to have the AM on it. And like, I could not find a clock radio for the bathroom that didn't have all of the digital components in the USB ports and all this stuff. And I also wanted one that hung on the wall. And it's like, like you just can't find them. So yes, we are, we are moving into the twentieth century here, folks, real quick. And then after this newscast at the top of the hour, we're going to get into some of the topics. So just real briefly in about a minute and a half here that I've got left before the news. I started off as a local reporter. I've always believed in the power of local news, local radio. You're not going to be able to get local coverage and local conversations with people, you know who understand the local news environment. You can ever replicate that on a satellite you can't replicate it on a you know, a syndicated national show. It's just this is what we do. This is what I have done since I started at WBT as a local reporter, covering city council, county commission, school board, state government. So that's been sort of my lane that I've been traveling down. When I went to Asheville, I focused on the Asheville city government, county commission. Now back in Charlotte, still doing that. I do cover national issues though, because national can impact the local obviously, but really like the focus that I try to take is to take these large local issues and try to get to sort of the political underpinnings, the philosophy right why we're seeing what we're seeing, and in the next hour you're going to hear there's a story about the stabbing on the light rail train. Where you've got all of these different inputs, all these different types of stories that are all playing a role in this one story. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetekaalanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.