Delays in approval for a reconfigured transmitter setup at its site off Broad Street in Richmond caused a potential buyer to walk away and led to the decision to shut it down.
The other was by Grace Covenant, owner of WBBL, which sought to reduce its allotted hours to 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and 8 to 9 p.m. on Sundays if the new station license were awarded.
[9]) Tinsley selected the call letters to give the station a "Southern sound"; the early studio featured a portrait of Robert E.
[12] WXEX-TV secured NBC affiliation, and so too did WLEE, bringing its programming back to local radio after it cut ties with WMBG and WTVR in the run-up to the television station's launch.
[14] In 1958, Pat Cohen, the owner of a chain of record stores, suggested to longtime WLEE general manager Harvey Hudson that he start playing rock and roll music due to its popularity.
[23] The station subtly shifted its music mix up in age to an adult contemporary format and began calling itself "Richmond Radio".
[25] Hudson, who would also serve as a founding owner of TVX Broadcast Group, returned to do a morning show for the standards-formatted station from 1984 to 1987.
While the station had not made money for a decade, the proximate cause was the failure of a plan to improve WLEE's nighttime broadcast facility.
[28] In late 1985, Gilcom had filed to build two new towers at 6200 West Broad Street, but it was forced to redo the plan for a three-tower array.
[30] WBBL never returned to the air and was deleted on March 14, 1994,[31] marking the definitive end of the oldest station in Richmond and the second-oldest in Virginia.
[34] The first incarnation of WLEE at 1320 lasted just three months due to financial problems,[35] but after being sold, the call letters and standards format returned in September.
[36] From 1995 to 1997, WLEE-FM (now WKLR) operated at 96.5 MHz as part of a local marketing agreement between WLEE and the FM station's owner, airing a 1970s-based classic hits format.