on january 2, 1972, ez communications acquired the fm station. it became wezb, part of a chain of beautiful music stations such as wezc charlotte, wezr washington and others owned by ez. while it was profitable, it was not able to best wwl-fm (now wlmg) in the easy listening format. briefly in the 1970s when disco music became a popular genre, 97.1 became "disco 97 fm" on thursday, february 8, 1979. but the disco era was short, with wezb switching to a rhythmic contemporary sound, called ""fm 97, the rhythm of the city!"" "we had a big party in the atrium at the hyatt regency hotel" says jimmy roberts, b97 fm's first bj, the station's version of a dj. on january 1, 1980, "baby new year was dropped from the ceiling and we switched over from being "fm 97, the rhythm of the city!" to "the new b97 fm"."