Townsquare Media’s group of four radio stations in Duluth has moved to new street-level studios downtown, putting some of the stations’ main studios on public display.
The group consists of Country outlet “B105” (KKCB), Hot Adult Contemporary station “Mix 108” (KBMX/107.7 Proctor), Classic Hits station “Kool 101.7” (KLDJ), and Classic Rocker “Sasquatch 106.5” (W293CT and WEBC/560). The stations had been at a facility on Central Entrance, near the city’s main retail area, for the past 20 years.
After a move conducted with help from corporate engineers, the stations began broadcasting from the Holiday Center on Superior Street on Nov. 4. Facebook Live videos show the glass-enclosed studios furnished with new equipment, including touchscreens with virtual mixing boards:
Townsquare Media Operations Manager David Drew acknowledged to WDIO-TV that being on display is a “whole new dynamic” but said they have embraced it. He said the new equipment gives the stations a national-quality sound.
As noted here last year, the new facility is just a block away from where WEBC was located until 1967. According to Roger Johnson’s WEBC Technological History thesis, the station moved into the Palladio Building at the northwest corner of 4th Avenue West and Superior Street in 1937 and remained there until a 1967 fire gutted the building.
WEBC then moved to Duluth’s East Hillside, where it added WAVC (now KKCB) in 1983 and KLDJ in 1995. The group moved to a former Color Tile building on Central Entrance in 1999, where it soon added KBMX.
The Holiday Center is a few blocks west of the Technology Village, which is home to Midwest Communications’ seven stations. The only other two commercial radio stations in Duluth are located in the East Hillside neighborhood.