Donald Flamm Sells WDJF 108 FM
January 1983 would bring about some changes for Westport's FM station. Donald Flamm had put WDJF up for sale, with Franz Allina's The Radio Company of Long Island as the future owner. It would take just over a year for the FCC to approve the 2 million dollar sale of the station. The Radio Company owned two other stations located on Long Island - WBAB-FM in Babylon and WGBB-AM in Merrick. Since at the time the FCC rules stated that a radio group could not operate multiple stations in the same market, the WDJF antenna was changed to a directional 6 bay system that would reduce the station's signal toward Long Island and The Radio Company's other stations. Please note that these rules have changed since the enactment of deregulation by the FCC.
Morale at 108-FM was low as staffers knew that the end of the station (and their jobs) was near. A red binder in the on-air studio, referred to as the "Death Binder", held public service styled announcements that yielded a low but repetitive cash flow for the station. Spotty news regarding the sale also had the staff on-edge. The bottom fell out in February of 1984 when the transaction finally went through. The new owners operated the station from the 163 Main Street location for a short time pending the completion of its new facilities at Norwalk's 50 Washington Street. New personnel, a new music format and more aggressive audio processing came with the station's new call letters of WEBE made their introduction on March 1, 1984. The station's first slogan, "Music Radio" would later be replaced with " the most music, the best variety, WE-BE 1-0-8." None of the WDJF staff were retained, although several announcers along with the engineering staff were still employed in the operations of former sister station WMMM.
