
WGVS (AM)

WGVS is a radio station on 850 kHz in Muskegon, Michigan. It forms a simulcast with WGVU 1480 AM in Kentwood, Michigan, a Grand Rapids suburb. The two stations are owned and operated by Grand Valley State University, along with WGVU-FM and WGVS-FM (which feature a talk/jazz format). Additionally the station's audio simulcasts on the digital subchannels of WGVU/WGVK on channel 35.4/52.4, which features scrolling television schedules along with visual song/artist information for the radio audio.
History.
Between 1926 and 1999, this station was the original WKBZ, the oldest radio station in Muskegon. It was founded in Ludington, Michigan, by Karl L. Ashbacker, and broadcast on 1170 kHz until 1927, 1500 kHz until 1941, and 1490 kHz until 1947. The station relocated to Muskegon in 1934, establishing studios in the Continental Hotel. (The Ashbackers later built another station in Ludington, starting up WKLA in 1944.)
The Ashbackers owned WKBZ until December 1951, when Arch Shawd acquired the Ashbacker Radio Company. Shawd sold the station in 1958 to Walter Patterson, who sold his WKBZ Radio Corporation to Frederick Allman and Robert Richards in 1963. Reams Communications Corporation bought WKBZ in 1968 and owned it until 1986, when the station was sold to KBZ Broadcasting.
WKBZ-AM-FM was donated to Grand Valley State by Robert Jewell and Daniel Thill in 1995; the university elected to sell the stations to WLC Communications, Inc., in early 1997. In November 1998, however, WLC returned WKBZ and WKBZ-FM 95.3 in Whitehall to Grand Valley State, which converted the stations to public radio as WGVS-AM-FM. (The WKBZ call letters moved to 1520 AM, which went silent in 2002, and are now on 1090 AM.)
On August 27, 2009, WGVU and WGVS flipped to the oldies format—a first for a public radio station. The station's playlist encompasses hits from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s and features many seldom-heard songs not typically played on commercial oldies stations, including some titles by local Michigan artists. Big band, traditional pop, and easy listening songs from the 1940s through the '70s are featured on Sunday mornings during the "Sunday Morning Standards" program. Also airing on Sundays is the "West Michigan Top 40" show, which counts down the songs on a historic local record chart from a given date.