The station originated in 1945 as W1XHR (later WXHR), owned by Harvey Radio Laboratories and programming a classical music format. In 1966, WXHR was sold to a joint venture of Kaiser Broadcasting and the "Boston Globe", and in 1967, became beautiful music station WJIB (whose AM successor operates out of the old Harvey Radio Labs building in Cambridge). After several further ownership changes—first to General Electric in 1972, then to NBC in 1983 (three years before the merger between NBC's parent company, RCA, and GE) and Emmis Communications in 1988—it flipped to smooth jazz as WCDJ, "CD96.9", on October 26, 1990. The first song under the new format was "Breakout" by Swing Out Sister. After Greater Media bought the station in May 1993, the station began stunting with a simulcast of new sister station WMJX at 1:00 p.m. on May 4 of that year. Two days later, at 4:00 p.m., WCDJ flipped to country as WBCS, "Country 96.9." The first song was "Here We Are" by Alabama. The station became WKLB-FM on August 24, 1996, after the previous WKLB-FM was bought by Greater Media and consolidated with WBCS, with its frequency being converted to WROR-FM. Smooth jazz returned at Noon on August 22, 1997 as WSJZ, after a format swap with what had been WOAZ (now WCRB). On September 7, 1999, it flipped to talk, completing a one-month transition to the format. Shortly after the flip, the station changed its call letters to WTKK. During its tenure as a talk station, WTKK used several monikers: "96.9 FM Talk" from its 1999 launch until 2007, "96.9 WTKK: Boston's Talk Evolution" from 2007 until 2010, "96.9 Boston Talks" from 2010 until September 2012, and "News Talk 96.9" from September 2012 until its January 2013 demise.