B98.5FM celebrates 20 years 

B98.5FM celebrates 20 years

B98.5FM (WSB-FM) is celebrating 20 years this year, and to start off the celebrating, longtime Atlanta DJ Kelly McCoy is celebrating his 20th anniversary with the station. (He started January 5, 1985). Mr. McCoy started out at WRFC 960AM in Athens, before coming to Atlanta and WQXI 790AM in 1978.

The station started out in 1948 on 104.5 FM with the original WSB-FM calls, owned by Cox (the station has never changed ownership in its 57 year history). In 1952, when Cox acquired the Atlanta Constitution and its media properties, WSB-FM moved its permanent home of 98.5 FM (it was then WCON-FM), the same time WSB-TV moved from Channel 8 to Channel 2 (then WCON-TV). Over the 60's and 70's the station was playing lush easy listening music (known to some people as Beautiful Music, or some people call it Muzak). WSB-FM even experimented with classical music due to the demise of FM classical music in Atlanta (WGKA-AM 1190 was the only commerical classical music outlet in Atlanta until 1997).

But in 1980, WSB-FM ushered in the new era of FM radio, by switching its format to Adult Contemporary (known to some as soft rock), and calling the station "WSB-FM Atlanta's 99". While the format was a success, something come up in the mid-1980's. A fellow AC station, Warm 99 (Then WWRM, now rock station WNNX 99X), also containing the 99, was confusing people. Some people were telling radio ratings service Arbitron that they were listening to "99", no mention of WWRM or WSB-FM. As a result, both stations were penalized. So WSB-FM adopted a new name for the station, and thus B98.5FM was born (The "B" was dervied from the WSB callsign).

Congratulations to B98.5FM, as well as to Kelly McCoy.