WUBE-FM


WUBE-FM is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. Licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, the station serves the Cincinnati area. The station is currently owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. The station is also broadcast on HD radio and airs a separate country format on its HD-2 side channel. Its studios and transmitter are located just northeast of Downtown Cincinnati two blocks from one another.
WUBE hosts the "Free Music Stage" At Taste of Cincinnati and Jammin' in the Country in neighboring Clermont County. Both events bring national known country music artists as well as local and emerging artists to the Tri-State area.

History

The station was originally known as WCPO-FM, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, owner of the Cincinnati Post, along with WCPO and WCPO-TV. One of the WCPO-FM announcers identified the frequency in the legal ID as 10-51 which was unique at the time. A video with audio of a WCPO-FM legal ID can be seen on YouTube. In January 1966, shortly after Scripps sold WCPO-AM-FM to Kaye-Smith Broadcasting, both stations changed call letters to WUBE & WUBE-FM. WUBE-FM would adopt its long-running country format in April 1969, with the AM partially simulcasting the FM throughout the 1970s.
Kaye-Smith Broadcasting sold WUBE-AM-FM to Plough Broadcasting in the late 1970s, who would then sell the stations to DKM Broadcasting in 1984. Two years later, both WUBE and what was then WDJO would be sold to American Media. In 1991, American Media sold the stations to National Radio Partners, who would later change their name to Chancellor Media, and then to AMFM, Inc. in 1999. The following year, due to AMFM's merger with Clear Channel Communications, WUBE-FM was sold to Infinity Broadcasting, while their AM sister was sold to Blue Chip Broadcasting. CBS sold WUBE to Entercom on August 21, 2006, along with CBS Radio's other Cincinnati stations.
On January 18, 2007, almost as soon as it entered the Cincinnati radio market, Entercom announced its exit from the market by trading its entire Cincinnati cluster, including WUBE, to Bonneville International together with three radio stations in Seattle, Washington, for all three of Bonneville's FM radio stations in San Francisco, California, and $1 million cash. In May 2007, Bonneville officially took over control of the Cincinnati radio cluster through a local marketing agreement, with Bonneville acquiring Entercom's remaining interest in the stations outright on March 14, 2008. WUBE was one of the winners in the 2008 NAB Crystal Radio Awards.
On January 19, 2011, it was announced that Bonneville International will sell WUBE and several other stations to Hubbard Broadcasting for $505 million. The sale was completed on April 29, 2011.