Steve Hegwood revives Old School R&B at WTBS-FM 87.7

ajc.com

Credit: Rodney Ho

Credit: Rodney Ho

By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Monday, Januay 11, 2016

For the past 18 months or so WTBS-FM 87.7 had been a Spanish tropical station La Mega Mundial and was actually generating some ratings.

But Core Communications Broadcasting decided to team up with scrappy Atlanta owner Steve Hegwood, owner of hip-hop station Streetz 94.5. As of Saturday, he has resurrected his Old School format, which had been most recently on AM 1010.

The Old School station focuses on R&B music from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

This means acts such as the Gap Band, Barry White, Stevie Wonder, Keith Sweat, Cameo, the S.O.S. Band, Luther Vandross and Frankie Beverly & the Maze.

Some of these artists are heard on Kiss 104.1 but Kiss plays songs from the past 15 years as well. The average age of a song at Kiss on Friday was 1995. Fellow R&B station Majic 107.5 skews a little more recent than Kiss, with the average song at 1997 and more currents are played, according to data compiled by Mediabase 24/7.

The FM signal is fairly strong, covering Decatur to Marietta. Someone on this radio discussion thread said they could catch it in Macon.

Hegwood is also trying to bring back a format at FM 99.3, which played classic hip hop for a few months until the FCC shut it down because of frequency interference.