WDOD-FM

WDOD-FM (96.5

History

Early years

The station signed on in the early 1960s as a simulcast of WDOD AM. Both stations played country music. Past personalities included Gene Michaels, Earl Freudenberg, Tommy Jett, Jerry Pond, and "Big" Bill Love. The station also carried NASCAR races, and was primarily a country station for a number of years.

At the end of the 1970s, WDOD-FM was known as "D-96" playing top 40 music. At one point, WDOD-FM would play big band music for a short time. The announcer in the legal ID said, "Big bands you remember on WDOD-FM, Chattanooga." Then by around 1981, WDOD-FM would play country music once again up until 1997 when WDOD-FM switched from country music to Triple-A "The Mountain."

The station was considering a switch to mostly

Regardless of the market, Triple-A had the same songs representing about half the playlist, but the rest were different on each station. On The Mountain, artists included Jewel, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Talking Heads. A sample hour of music included Collective Soul, Third Eye Blind, Chris Isaak, Stone Temple Pilots, EMF, Van Halen, Dave Matthews Band, Joan Osborne, Bruce Springsteen, Vigilantes of Love, Loverboy, No Doubt, Aerosmith, and U2. Many songs were familiar and had been hits (an unusual approach to alternative), but they were not heard in the Chattanooga market.

One characteristic that made The Mountain different was attitude, which other area stations did not have. DJs and liners attacked the competition as well as artists such as