WJFD 97.3 FM

A commercial FM radio station licensed to serve the New Bedford, Massachusetts area, operating on 97.3 MHz. The station is owned by Henry M. Arruda through WJFD-FM, Inc., with studios and offices on Orchard Street in New Bedford and a transmitter located in Fairhaven. It broadcasts a Portuguese-language music format aimed at the Portuguese, Brazilian, and Cape Verdean communities across Southeastern New England. The station traces its origins to February 22, 1949, when it signed on as WBSM-FM, functioning as the FM counterpart to the AM station WBSM. Recognizing the large Portuguese-speaking population in the coastal region—many of whom had settled there to work in the fishing industry—management shifted programming to Portuguese content. The call sign changed to WGCY in September 1970 under new ownership by Gray Communications, before being reassigned again in June 1975 to reflect the initials of Jacinto F. Diniz, father of then-owner Edmund Dinis, a prominent local prosecutor and political figure of Azorean descent. Edmund Dinis retained ownership until his death in March 2010 at age 85, after which the station passed to his longtime business partner Henry M. Arruda. The studios subsequently relocated from a historic downtown location on Union Street to newer facilities in the south end of New Bedford. In 2015, the station joined the iHeartRadio streaming platform, becoming the first and only Portuguese-language radio station in the United States to do so, extending its reach to Portuguese-speaking audiences beyond its traditional broadcast area.