WVEE (103.3 FM, "V-103") is a commercial radio station in Atlanta, Georgia. It is owned by Audacy, Inc. and airs an urban contemporary radio format. WVEE is one of the highest-rated stations in the Atlanta radio market according to Nielsen Audio, reaching number one on many reports. Its studios and offices are located in Colony Square on Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta, along with its sister stations WAOK, WSTR and WZGC.
WVEE has an effective radiated power of 100,000 watts. It shares a tower off New Street NE, with WABE-TV, as well as with WSB-FM, which is owned by Cox Radio. The two radio stations' transmitters are diplexed together, so that they feed to the antenna instead of into each other.
History
1940s
The station that became WVEE first signed on the air on July 1, 1948. Its original call sign was WAGA-FM, simulcasting a country music radio format with WAGA (590 AM, now WDWD). They were owned by Storer Broadcasting, a company that owned several top stations in large American cities.
The following year, television station WAGA-TV was added as a CBS-TV network affiliate and is now a Fox Television owned and operated station.
1950s and 1960s
In 1959, WAGA-AM-FM were acquired by Plough Broadcasting, a subsidiary of a pharmaceutical company that decided to invest in radio stations. Their call letters were switched to WPLO and WPLO-FM, and the two stations continued to simulcast WPLO's successful country programming.
In the late 1960s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began requiring AM stations in larger cities to end full-time simulcasts, promoting new programming on FM stations. WPLO had Georgia State University students program and host a free form "underground" format, giving the students academic credit instead of pay. The arrangement allowed Plough to have an inexpensive FM presence in the years before FM came to dominate the radio spectrum. It created enough interest among the student body that the Georgia Board of Regents obtained a construction permit and license for its own station at the university, WRAS-FM.
Plough management believed the music programmed by the Georgia State students could become a profitable commercial format if presented professionally. By 1969, WPLO-FM was billing itself as "Atlanta's Alternative High," and described its 103.3 frequency as "103-and-a-third." Program directors in this progressive rock era included Ed Shane, Steve Hosford, and Chris Morgan.
1970s
In 1974, as more listeners were switching from AM to FM for music listening, Plough-Shearing changed WPLO-FM's format. Keeping the same call letters, WPLO-FM flipped to country music to build on the AM station's popularity. The AM station continued to have more personality, with frequent news and weather updates, while the FM station went in a more-music, limited DJ chatter direction.
In October 1976, Schering-Plough recognized Atlanta's growing middle-class African-American market by changing WPLO-FM to urban contemporary under the "V-103" moniker and new call sign WVEE. It briefly aired a disco music format in the late 1970s.
When disco fever cooled, WVEE-FM returned to urban contemporary, and became one of the Atlanta radio market's top stations under the leadership of program director Scotty Andrews. As the first urban station on the FM dial in Metro Atlanta, the "V-103" brand eventually saw other stations around the U.S. follow its formula, including Baltimore sister station WXYV, also known as "V-103", and a Chicago "V-103" (WVAZ, now owned by iHeartMedia).
1980s-1990s
In the early 1980s, DKM Broadcasting Corporation purchased WVEE-FM and WAOK. On January 1, 1988, WVEE-FM was sold, along with other DKM-owned properties in Baltimore, Denver, Springfield, Lincoln, Akron, Dayton, and Dallas, for $200 million to The Summit Communications Group, Inc. In March 1995, Summit sold its interests in WVEE FM and WAOK AM to Granum Communications, Inc., owned by Herbert W. McCord, Peter Ferrara, and Michael Weinstein.
In March 1996, Granum Communications sold both stations to Infinity Broadcasting, which was later folded into CBS Radio. Infinity already owned WZGC, which it owned since 1992, that made the three stations a trio-poly.