WBBA-FM

WBBA-FM

Pittsfield, Illinois
Broadcast area	Pittsfield, Illinois Pike County, Illinois
Frequency	97.5 MHz
Branding	B97.5 Today's Best Mix
Programming
Format	Hot AC
Ownership
Owner	Doug Smith (GBI Communications, LLC)
History
First air date	1966
Call sign meaning	We Broadcast the Best Agriculture.
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	62351
Class	B1
ERP	10,000 Watts
HAAT	93 meters (305 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	39°34′53.0″N 90°47′52.0″W
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Webcast	https://free.rcast.net/66097
Website	B975Radio.com

WBBA-FM is a broadcast radio station serving the Pittsfield, Jacksonville, Illinois and West Central Illinois areas, as well as parts of Northeastern Missouri including the Pike County, Missouri and Northern Lincoln County, MO areas.

WBBA-FM is owned and operated by Doug Smith, through licensee GBI Communications, LLC. The station is currently under a management agreement with a purchase option from Jimmy Fish Productions headed by Jim Fishback. The station is known on the air as B97.5, and airs a full service Hot Adult Contemporary music format.

WBBA-FM airs games and programming of the St. Louis Cardinals professional baseball team.

History

WBBA Signed on the Air in December of 1954 under the ownership of the Meyer family with 170W of Power daytime at 1580 AM from a tower just to the south of Pittsfield. In 1966, WBBA-FM was added at 97.7 MHz with 3,000 Watts of Power. The Meyer Family sold the station in the late 1980s, and after a couple of short lived owners, the station was sold to Gary Brown, a St. Louis, MO radio personality.

WBBA AM ceased to exist in 1996 and the station went to FM only after a dispute with the landowner of the WBBA AM tower, which also supported the FM station at that time. The FM station at that time was moved to a tower on the east side of Pittsfield; and the license to the AM station was never rebuilt and its license was cancelled by the Federal Communications Commission in 2000.

WBBA had been dark from May of 2024 after a purchase of the station by principals of KJFM in Louisiana, MO failed to close with the Federal Communications Commission, and a Simulcast of KJFM that began early in 2024 abruptly ended and the station was filed as silent with the Federal Communications Commission. Fishback would return the station to the air in late February of 2025 with its current format of Hot Adult Contemporary Music.

DJ Two Rivers Radio purchased WBBA-FM in 2003, along with sister station WJBM, from Brown Radio Group Inc. for $320,000 in 2003. WBBA-FM aired a country music format at the time of its sale, and was branded "Double Barreled Country".

Effective March 14, 2022, DJ Two Rivers Radio transferred the licenses for WBBA-FM and sister station WJBM, and the construction permit for translator W284DN, to Doug Smith's GBI Communications, LLC as settlement of a lawsuit between the two parties.

On February 22, 2025, after being silent since May 2024, WBBA-FM returned to the air and began stunting towards a new format to launch on March 17, 2025.

On March 18, 2025, WBBA-FM signed back on the air with a new full service Hot Adult Contemporary format featuring The TJ Show in the morning, St. Louis Cardinals Baseball, Ag Reports from Monte James and Your Ag Network, Local News, Sports, Weather Reports, and other local programming.

Previous logo

External links

• Facility details for Facility ID 62351 (WBBA) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
• WBBA in Nielsen Audio's FM station database