WDEE-FM
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| WDEE-FM | |
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| City of license | Reed City, Michigan |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | [1] |
| Branding | Sunny 97.3 |
| Slogan | We Play Your Oldies |
| Frequency | 97.3 MHz |
| First air date | August 1997 |
| Format | Oldies |
| Power | 2,850 watts |
| Class | A |
| Owner | Beilfuss Broadcasting |
| Website | http://www.sunny973.com/ |
WDEE-FM (97.3 FM, "Sunny 97.3") is a radio station broadcasting an oldies format. Licensed to Reed City, Michigan, it first began broadcasting in 1997.
WDEE originally began as an AM station, first going on the air in 1981, and under the ownership of David A. Carmine, a Detroit radio personality known to radio audiences as Dave Carr for many years. Carmine had put on an FM station in Harrison, known as WKKM in 1975. Inspired by this station's success, he decided to build another station in Reed City.
Carmine chose the WDEE call letters, which had been dropped by a famous country music station in Detroit ("The Big "D") that had changed its format and call letters. For a period of about eight years, WDEE had been a fully-independent station with its own studio and staff in an office located in the city office complex (now the county annex) in Reed City. However, by the end of the decade, WDEE had been reduced to a simulcast outlet of WKKM before finally being silenced in the mid-1980s and the on-air facility removed from the county annex site. Dave Carmine turned off the simulcast in about October 1992.
Carmine agreed to sell WDEE to Beilfuss Broadcasting, a company owned by longtime northern Michigan radio programmer/engineer Steven Beilfuss (known to listeners by his sobriquet of Steve Masters), who returned WDEE to the air in March 1994 with a 50's 60's, 70's and 80's oldies music format, and a small studio office in downtown Reed City.
Despite a weak daytime-only signal of 250 watts, WDEE was successful largely through the hard work and Steve and his wife and of being a hands-on owner-operators who did much of the work themselves. Masters then successfully applied for an FM frequency at 97.3, which made its debut as WDEE-FM after three years running as a full simulcast of its AM sister. By that time, the oldies format had evolved into Classic Hits and the station was known as "Classic Hits 97.3."
Eventually, they separated programming between the two stations, running a classic country format on WDEE-AM. However, WDEE-AM was over shadowed by the success of what now had become the area's number one oldies station. WDEE-FM continued on,and taking on the "Sunny 97.3" moniker, but with a the area's largest rotation of music covering the 1950s through the 1980s, which continues to this day.
SUNNY 97.3 has re-located the WDEE-FM studios from Reed City into downtownBig Rapidswhere they continue to bring listners coverage of all their favorite music along with live coverage of the Detroit Tigers, West Michigan White Caps baseball and Detroit Red Wing Hockey. You can check them out on the web at www.sunny973.com SUNNY 97.3 is an active member of the community with live interviews from local businesses and organizations during Radio Caffeine weekdays 6:00am to 10:00am. SUNNY 97.3 continues to be successful and the area's number one oldies station!
