WBCN (North Carolina)

Radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina (2003–2010)

WBCN ceased broadcasting on December 31, 2020, due to the sale of the transmitter site for residential development. The translator station continued airing "Fox Sports Charlotte" on 94.7 FM, fed by the HD3 subchannel of WSOC FM.

The station originated as the expanded band "twin" of an existing station on the standard AM band. On March 17, 1997, the FCC announced that eighty eight stations had been given permission to move to newly available "Expanded Band" transmitting frequencies, ranging from 1610 to 1700 kHz, with WGIV in Charlotte authorized to move from 1600 to 1660 kHz. A construction permit for the expanded band station was assigned the call letters WBHE on September 4, 1998. Programming on the expanded band station, which changed its call letters to WFNA on December 9, 2003, WFNZ must power down to 1,000 watts at night, rendering it all but unlistenable in some parts of the Charlotte radio market. The station was switched its call sign to WBMX on July 29, 2009. A few weeks later, on August 12, it again switched its call letters to WBCN. The assignment of the WBMX and WBCN call letters came as CBS Radio prepared for a radio station shuffle in Boston. WBCN, Boston's longtime rock station, was set to move to a digital only platform, while 98.5 WBMX was moving to WBCN's old frequency at 104.1 FM. This swap was being made to create a new Boston sports radio station at 98.5 FM. On August 5, 2009, Mix 98.5 in Boston switched its callsign from WBMX FM to WBZ FM. The WBMX call sign was parked in Charlotte, while WBCN aired for its final days. Shortly after midnight on August 12, 2009, WBCN signed off, and the WBCN and WBMX calls were switched to complete the process. According to The Charlotte Observer, CBS decided to park the WBCN call letters in Charlotte to keep another Boston station from picking them up and trading on the station's 51 year heritage in Boston (including 41 years as a rock station). Bill Schoening, CBS Radio manager for Charlotte, said, "It's very common in the business. It was a major signal with call letters that still have value and heritage."

On September 14, 2009, WBCN became "America's Talk", a conservative talk radio station featuring syndicated hosts Michael Smerconish, Melanie Morgan, Jason Lewis, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, John Gibson and Phil Hendrie. The target audience was primarily male and ages 25 to 54. Operations manager DJ Stout said, "We feel that Charlotte has never really had an alternative when it comes to news talk." Jason Lewis, a former host at 1110 WBT, said, "I think it'll be the stiffest competition WBT has seen in a while." Local newscasts each hour were produced jointly with local TV station WCNC TV. Lewis moved back to WBT in 2011.

On June 21, 2012, Mark Washburn of The Charlotte Observer reported that, starting in 2013, WBCN would be one of the charter affiliates of the new CBS Sports Radio network and would carry that network's programming throughout the day. WBCN began airing network programming on January 2, 2013. It also aired any Wake Forest or Davidson basketball games that conflicted with Charlotte Hornets games on WFNZ. On October 2, 2014, CBS Radio announced that it would trade all of its Tampa and Charlotte stations, including WBCN, as well as WIP in Philadelphia to the Beasley Broadcast Group in exchange for five stations located in Miami and Philadelphia. The swap was completed on December 1, 2014. On September 8, 2015, WBCN changed back to conservative talk, branded as "America's Pulse 1660".

On June 19, 2017, at 6 a. m., WBCN flipped formats to classic rock, branded as "94.7 Smoke", and began relaying on translator W234BY (94.7 FM). The station aired an original playlist, focused on Southern classic rock artists including Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers and Tom Petty, as well as local artists, and some Southern country tracks. It competed with iHeartMedia's longtime classic rock outlet WRFX. While WBCN was also heard on FM through a 250 watt translator station, WRFX's effective radiated power is 84,000 watts.

On February 4, 2019, the station returned to a sports format, now with an affiliation with Fox Sports Radio.

On December 31, 2020, WBCN went silent. The "Fox Sports Charlotte" sports format continued on W234BY 94.7 FM and WSOC FM HD3. On February 5, 2021, the call sign of the still silent station was changed to WJBX in a swap with a radio station near Fort Myers, Florida. WJBX's license was cancelled on August 24, 2022.