WUSL (98.9 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It carries a mainstream urban radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The studios and offices are on Presidential Boulevard in Bala Cynwyd. WUSL is a Class B station with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 27,000 watts. Its transmitter is off Wigard Avenue near the Schuylkill River in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. WUSL broadcasts in the HD Radio hybrid format. Its HD2 digital subchannel formerly played Spanish-language contemporary hits. History Easy listening and Soft AC In 1961, the 98.9 frequency signed on as WPBS. The call sign represented Philadelphia Bulletin Station, under common ownership with the city's largest daily newspaper at the time, The Evening Bulletin. (The call letters pre-date the 1969 founding of PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service.) WPBS was cross-promoted with the newspaper and featured an easy listening format, airing quarter hour sweeps of mostly instrumental cover versions of popular adult songs, as well as Broadway and Hollywood showtunes. At one point, WPBS was called "Velvet Stereo". In 1976, the newspaper sold the station to LIN Broadcasting, which at the time also owned WFIL. WPBS's call letters were changed to WUSL, which stood for "U.S. 1", a major north-south route running through Philadelphia. (The "L" represented the number 1.) Program Director Jim Nettleton instituted a Soft Adult Contemporary format mixed with a number of standards which had crossed over to the 1960s/1970s pop charts (e.g. Engelbert Humperdinck, Barbra Streisand, Andy Williams, etc.). The studios were located at 440 Domino Lane in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, where the station's tower is still located. Country music On July 3, 1981, the station switched to a "3-in-a-row" country music format as Continuous Country, US-99FM. Two months later, co-owned WFIL switched to a more personality and information-leaning country station, while WUSL stuck with a more-music, limited chatter approach. But country music's listener base in a northern city such as Philadelphia was not very large, and the station struggled in the ratings. As such, WUSL ended the country format shortly after midnight on October 9, 1982; the final country song was "Get into Reggae Cowboy" by The Bellamy Brothers. The station then went silent for the night before premiering its new format. Urban contemporary LIN Broadcasting decided to target Philadelphia's growing African-American community with a new radio station, challenging the long-established leader in R&B music, WDAS-FM. WUSL