WDIA [SEP] licensed to broadcast to
WDIA
WDIA is a radio station based in Memphis, Tennessee. Active since 1947, it soon became the first radio station in the United States that was programmed entirely for African Americans. It featured black radio personalities; its success in building an audience attracted radio advertisers suddenly aware of a "new" market among black listeners. The station had a strong influence on music, hiring musicians early in their careers, and playing their music to an audience that reached through the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf Coast.
The station
Riley King, later known as B.B.King. The audience was harsh, reducing many in stature; if you could survive the unsympathetic crowds, your star would rise.
As a pioneering DJ at radio station WDIA and one of the first Black announcers to air from the segregated south, his "Tan Town Jubilee" was broadcast across the Mississippi delta and reached both black and white audiences, introducing them to blues and gospel, mixed with the jazz and swing which the other ‘big band’ oriented ‘black’ (but