WSHP-FM


WSHP-FM is an FM radio station licensed to Easley, South Carolina and serving the Greenville radio market. Owned by the Radio Training Network, it broadcasts a contemporary worship music radio format.

History

103.9 FM signed on in 1964 as WELP-FM, mostly simulcasting sister station, WELP 1360 AM. By the early 1980s, WELP-FM's tower was moved to a new location and the station's power was increased from 2.3 kW to 3 kW in order to get a better signal into nearby Greenville. The station at the time was known as WTLT "Lite 104", airing a Soft Adult Contemporary format.
Both WTLT and WELP-FM were sold to new ownership by 1987. In December of that year, WTLT changed to Urban Contemporary as WLWZ, adopting the "Z-104" nickname. After two months of cold segues and promos, a new airstaff debuted in February 1988, consisting of Greg Darden for mornings, Maxx Myrick for middays as well as programming duties, Dave Hendricks for afternoons, Tori Turner for nights as well as the station's music director, and "Brother" Bill Prater for overnights. Ratings increased almost overnight from a 1.1 to a 9.4, despite having a limited signal that covered half of the Greenville-Spartanburg radio market.
In 1989, the Voyager broadcasting group purchased the radio station, and utilized Don Kelly & JC Floyd as consultants. Wayne Walker had remained, even with the addition of 103.3.
On January 1, 1996, 103-X added Howard Stern's radio show for mornings, but was faced with a backlash from both radio listeners and advertisers that lasted for weeks. During that time, Emerald City decided to sell out to Sinclair, and 103-X changed formats to Oldies in February 1996 after the flip of WFBC-FM to top-40. The call letters WOLI and WOLT were added a few months later. The station were on satellite for the next few years and in late 1999, a local airstaff was finally added.
In November 2000, the station jumped on the '80s Oldies bandwagon that was going on at the time, becoming "Star 103", but retained the call letters for both stations. The syndicated Bob & Sheri radio show was added as well as a new airstaff. Over time, the station slowly evolved toward Classic Hits, but kept the Star 103 handle. In late 2003, the station changed its format to a Contemporary Christian/ Country hybrid as "The Walk". In 2005, Entercom sold WOLT-FM/103.3, WOLI-FM/103.9, & WSPA/910 to Davidson Media Group, while retaining "The Walk" and placing it on its newly acquired 106.3 WGVC-FM signal, which lasted a little over a year until the unsuccessful format was dropped.
WOLI-FM originally simulcasted WOLI/910 starting in October 2005. However, when WNOW-FM, then located in Gaffney, South Carolina began airing much of the same programming in 2007, WOLI-FM began playing Spanish Religious programming, like sister station WBZK in Charlotte. The 910 simulcast was intended to better cover Spartanburg with the programming heard on 103.9, which primarily covers the Greenville area.
Davidson Media sold WOLI-FM and eleven other stations to Mahan Janbakhsh's TBLC Holdings, LLC for $3.5 million; following the closure of the sale in November 2015, it flipped to Regional Mexican as
Activa 103.9. Its calls were later changed to WTOB, and then WTOB-FM.
In September 2019, the station was sold to Radio Training Network, which would make it a sister station to WLFJ-FM; the sale was consummated on March 11, 2020. On March 19, 2020, following the closure of the sale, the station flipped to contemporary worship music as His Radio Praise, and changed its call letters to WSHP-FM.