WTVR-FM

WTVR-FM (98.1 MHz) is an FM radio station licensed to Richmond, Virginia. WTVR-FM serves Central Virginia with an adult contemporary music format. The station is owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. with studios and offices located north of Richmond's city limits on Basie Road in Dumbarton. It shares a nearby broadcasting tower with its formerly co-owned TV station, WTVR-TV.
WTVR-FM is a grandfathered "superpower station". The station has an effective radiated power of 50,000 watts at 256 meters. This exceeds the maximum allowable ERP for the station's antenna height above average terrain according to current FCC rules, which is 17,500 watts at 256 meters.
History.
WTVR-FM began broadcasting in February 1947 as WCOD (standing for "Capital Old Dominion") and was owned by the Richmond Broadcasting Company. It was the sister station of AM 1380, which is today WBTK. For many years, it was also co-owned with WTVR-TV. The call letters for all three stations were WTVR, signifying "TeleVision Richmond." Even though WTVR-TV is today owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the FM and TV stations still share the WTVR call letters and the tower off West Broad Street, a landmark on the Richmond skyline. WTVR-FM operates at 50,000 watts, standard for most FM stations in the Richmond market. However, at , its tower is taller than the FM Class B limit of 150 meters.
For much of its early history, WTVR-FM aired beautiful music, although by the 1980s, that mostly instrumental format was falling out of favor with younger listeners. It gradually added more soft vocals to its playlist, transitioning to the adult contemporary format heard today.
On November 13, 2015, WTVR-FM switched to Christmas music, and began calling itself "The All-New Christmas 98.1." In recent years, along with many other adult contemporary radio stations, WTVR-FM switches to all holiday music from mid-November to Christmas Day. As the holidays ended, iHeartMedia rebranded the station as "Mix 98.1" on December 28. Despite the new branding, the format remains adult contemporary, although more uptempo.
On November 1, 2017, iHeartMedia announced that WTVR-FM, along with all of their sister stations in Richmond and Chattanooga, would be sold to Entercom due to that company's merger with CBS Radio. The sale was completed on December 19, 2017.
WTVR-HD2.
WTVR-FM broadcasts a simulcast of news/talk-formatted WRVA on its HD2 sub channel. On May 5, 2014, translator W253BI (98.5 FM) began simulcasting WRVA via WTVR-HD2. The simulcast on W253BI ended on July 23, 2015; WRVA's signal is still relayed via WTVR-HD2.