WKQI
Encyclopedia
WKQI — branded Channel 955 — is a commercial pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

/CHR
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...

 radio station in Detroit, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, owned by Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...

. WKQI transmits its signal with an effective radiated power of 100,000 watts from an antenna 430 feet in height located at the intersection of Greenfield Road and 10 Mile Rd. in suburban Oak Park
Oak Park, Michigan
As of the census of 2000, there were 29,793 people, 11,104 households, and 7,595 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,863.8 persons per square mile . There were 11,370 housing units at an average density of 2,263.9 per square mile...

 in Oakland County. It can be heard as far west as Ithaca, Michigan
Ithaca, Michigan
Ithaca is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 3,098. It is the county seat of Gratiot County.-Geography:...

, as far south as Cridersville, Ohio
Cridersville, Ohio
Cridersville is a village in Auglaize County, Ohio, United States. The population was 1,817 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Wapakoneta, Ohio Micropolitan Statistical Area....

, and as far east as London, Ontario
London, Ontario
London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...

.

Classical, Easy Listening WLDM and WCZY

From the essay "A Brief History of Beautiful Music Radio" by Richard O’Connor-

"WLDM FM, Detroit Michigan, began as an unaffiliated classical outlet in February of 1949. Although a few Andre Kostelanetz, Morton Gould, and Percy Faith recordings were played as light music it was not until the station took up storecasting in 1951 that they and other popular orchestras were heard regularly along with light classical and some classical music as "albums in high-fidelity". Evenings were devoted to concert works. An audience of non-client listeners developed slowly, but when owner Lincoln Broadcasting Company moved the storecast to its subcarrier late in 1957 and rededicated the main channel solely to classical recordings they raised enough of an outcry that a substantial amount of daytime popular music was eventually restored. In the late 50s and early 60s the station enjoyed prestige as the area's premier purveyor of 'good music', adding Broadway show selections from original cast albums, folk music, and 'hi-fi' recordings, later spoken word and dramatic presentations. WLDM increased power in 1961 and started broadcasting in stereo. Three years later most of the classical shows were dropped in favor of beautiful music, a move that led to high ratings and greatly increased revenue for the remainder of the decade and through much of the 70s."

After being sold to Combined Communications (which later sold to Gannett Broadcasting in 1981), WLDM changed its call letters to WCZY-FM ("Cozy FM") in 1976.

WCZY-FM's format, under Robert Gaskins, continued to evolve into the number one station in Detroit's 25-54 demographics. Top rated personalities Paul Bryon (Mornings), Bob Martin (Middays), and Al Gauge (afternoons) created a friendly sound that continued the station's dominance of the easy-listening music audience in Detroit. But in 1981, when the Gannett newspaper chain purchased this and the rest of Combined's stations, Gannett staff believed that the station, even with its high advertising rates, was not generating enough revenue. Gannett fired the entire easy-listening air staff and began to move the format in an adult contemporary direction. WCZY's listeners did not accept the more contemporary music, and the former easy-listening powerhouse was soon struggling to make the top ten as well as suffering from decreased revenues.

In 1978, former country station WDEE-AM (1500) was acquired and its call letters changed to WCZY-AM with a similar format. Even though several top rated disc jockeys like Bob Martin were moved to the AM, the poor signal of the station hindered the station from producing the #1 ratings the FM station enjoyed. WCZY-AM changed to WLQV-AM (Love Radio) with a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 religious format put in place.

Even with solid competition from two other easy listening stations 96.3 WJR-FM
WDVD
WDVD is a hot adult contemporary radio station in Detroit, Michigan, broadcasting at 96.3 MHz on the FM dial. WDVD's studios and offices are located in the Fisher Building near downtown Detroit. WDVD's transmitter is located in Oakland County in Royal Oak Township at 8 Mile Road and Wyoming Avenue...

 and 97.1 WWJ-FM, WCZY-FM enjoyed two more years of #1 ratings in the adult listening market until in 1980, the Combined Communications chain was bought by the Gannett newspaper chain. Wishing for a heavier commercial load and with no radio ownership experience, the format was changed in 1983 to Top 40 to compete with "Hot Hits
Hot Hits
Hot Hits was a radio format created by consultant Mike Joseph in the 1970s. That concept, which helped spur the birth of what is now known as CHR, also revitalized the Top 40 format and would play a role in bringing the format to the FM band throughout the 1980s.The concept was to play only the...

" WHYT (the former WJR-FM), eventually taking on the moniker "Z95.5". Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan is a former American radio personality. His last radio job was as the morning radio show host on Oldies 104.3 serving the Detroit, Michigan U.S. radio market. Purtan was also a disc jockey at WKNR-AM, WXYZ-AM, CKLW-AM and WCZY-FM which became WKQI-FM in 1989...

 was brought in from CKLW as the new morning man, and the entire staff was replaced (Gaskins going to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, and Martin to Mobile, Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...

). But the station never came anywhere near the sales or high ratings levels it enjoyed under the leadership of Bob Gaskins and air talent of Bryon, Martin and Gauge. Largely thanks to the popularity of Dick Purtan's morning show, WCZY continued to post top 10 ratings through most of the rest of the 1980s, but the 95.5 MHz frequency did not return to number one (12+) until over a quarter-century later.

All Hits Z95.5

Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan is a former American radio personality. His last radio job was as the morning radio show host on Oldies 104.3 serving the Detroit, Michigan U.S. radio market. Purtan was also a disc jockey at WKNR-AM, WXYZ-AM, CKLW-AM and WCZY-FM which became WKQI-FM in 1989...

 came over from CKLW to host Cozy FM's morning show in early 1983, and the evolution of WCZY's format away from easy listening and toward rock continued. By the end of 1983, the change from AC to CHR
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...

 was complete, and the station was poised to do battle with "Hot Hits
Hot Hits
Hot Hits was a radio format created by consultant Mike Joseph in the 1970s. That concept, which helped spur the birth of what is now known as CHR, also revitalized the Top 40 format and would play a role in bringing the format to the FM band throughout the 1980s.The concept was to play only the...

" WHYT
WDVD
WDVD is a hot adult contemporary radio station in Detroit, Michigan, broadcasting at 96.3 MHz on the FM dial. WDVD's studios and offices are located in the Fisher Building near downtown Detroit. WDVD's transmitter is located in Oakland County in Royal Oak Township at 8 Mile Road and Wyoming Avenue...

 for the CHR audience. In 1984, WCZY rebranded itself "Z95.5." Z95.5 enjoyed a fair amount of ratings success with its CHR format, usually rated in Detroit's top ten Arbitron ratings 12+, though arguably much of the station's high ratings came from Purtan's show. In an attempt to hold on to the station's adult audience, Z95.5 was more of an Adult CHR, avoiding most rap, dance and hard rock songs unless they were successful pop crossovers. Although WCZY's overall 12+ ratings were often better than WHYT's, WHYT was much more popular with teenage and young adult listeners.

For a time, Z95.5 also simulcast its programming again on AM 1500 (WLQV-AM, which once again changed its calls to WCZY-AM, with the station IDing as "Z95.5 and AM 1500") as part of a ploy to "return Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan is a former American radio personality. His last radio job was as the morning radio show host on Oldies 104.3 serving the Detroit, Michigan U.S. radio market. Purtan was also a disc jockey at WKNR-AM, WXYZ-AM, CKLW-AM and WCZY-FM which became WKQI-FM in 1989...

 to the AM dial." It lasted only a few years before AM 1500 returned to its previous religious format as WLQV.

Q95

Despite Z95.5's high ratings, the station still wanted to attract more older listeners in the hope of attracting more advertising dollars, and so in 1989, WCZY changed its calls to WKQI, "Q95," dropped hard rock and rap product from its playlist and added more gold from the 1970s and 1980s. Detroit based AC radio consultant Gary Berkowitz
Gary Berkowitz
Gary Berkowitz is an American Radio Broadcast Consultant based in Detroit, Michigan.Originally from Oceanside, NY, he attended Emerson College in Boston, MA where he received a B.A. in Speech and Communications....

 was the original Q95 program director, which also included (in addition to Dick Purtan) air personalities Kevin O'Neill and Michael Waite (formerly of rival WHYT).

Q95 started as an Adult CHR but by late 1990 had shifted to mainstream adult contemporary to challenge incumbent AC outlets WNIC
WNIC
WNIC is an American radio station based in Detroit, Michigan broadcasting at 100.3 MHz FM. WNIC's studios and offices are located in Farmington Hills, MI. WNIC's transmitter is located near Schoolcraft and Livernois Avenue in the City of Detroit on the near west side. WNIC broadcasts with an...

 and WLTI
WDRQ
WDRQ is an FM radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is branded as 93.1 Doug FM. Doug FM broadcasts from the Fisher Building just north of downtown Detroit and transmits its signal from an antenna 669 feet in length located at the intersection of Ten Mile and Greenfield Roads in suburban...

. The station's ratings continued to be respectable throughout the 1990s. Dick Purtan was an investor in the new station and stayed on as Q95's morning host until 1996, when he left for oldies 104.3 WOMC.

Following Purtan's departure, WKQI became "Q95-5, Detroit's Continuous Hit Music Station," hired former Partridge Family star Danny Bonaduce
Danny Bonaduce
Dante Daniel "Danny" Bonaduce is an American radio/television personality, comedian, professional wrestler, and former child actor...

 as the morning show host, and shifted back to an Adult CHR presentation, adding alternative-pop artists such as Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette
Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and actress. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards, was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and also shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination...

, Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...

, Joan Osborne
Joan Osborne
Joan Elizabeth Osborne is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her song "One of Us". She has toured with Motown sidemen the Funk Brothers and was featured in the documentary film about them, Standing in the Shadows of Motown.-Biography:Originally from Anchorage, Kentucky, a suburb...

, Live
Live (band)
Live is an American rock band from York, Pennsylvania, composed of Chad Taylor , Patrick Dahlheimer , and Chad Gracey . Lead singer and principal songwriter Ed Kowalczyk left the band in November 2009....

, and BoDeans
BoDeans
The BoDeans are a rock band formed in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1983 by Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas . In 1985, after adding a drummer and a bassist, the band signed a contract with Slash Records and recorded their first album...

 which the station had not played previously. For most of the late 1990s, WKQI was a heavily dayparted station, being a fairly conservative Hot AC during the day but taking more of a CHR approach at night, while still shying away from most urban music and rap except for artists with mainstream pop appeal such as Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...

, Toni Braxton
Toni Braxton
Toni Michelle Braxton is an American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Braxton has won six Grammy Awards, seven American Music Awards, and five Billboard Music Awards and has sold over 60 million records worldwide...

, and Ghost Town DJs
Ghost Town DJs
Ghost Town DJ's was an African-American hip-hop music group who recorded the 1996 hit, "My Boo". The song was influenced by Miami bass and was a big hit on Miami's Y100 and Power 96....

.

Top 40 wars: WKQI vs. WDRQ

Danny Bonaduce kept WKQI's morning ratings high, but after he departed in 1998 the station began to falter. ABC/Disney-owned rhythmic-based rival WDRQ
WDRQ
WDRQ is an FM radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is branded as 93.1 Doug FM. Doug FM broadcasts from the Fisher Building just north of downtown Detroit and transmits its signal from an antenna 669 feet in length located at the intersection of Ten Mile and Greenfield Roads in suburban...

 took advantage of WKQI's weak spots by moving to a more mainstream Top 40 format with a hotter, more energetic presentation than WKQI. WDRQ also gained an advantage on WKQI, which remained a fairly conservative station musically, by emphasizing the then-hot teen-pop movement and stars like Backstreet Boys
Backstreet Boys
The Backstreet Boys are an American vocal group, formed in Orlando, Florida in 1993. The band originally consisted of A. J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, Nick Carter and Kevin Richardson. They rose to fame with their debut international album, Backstreet Boys...

, Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...

, Spice Girls
Spice Girls
The Spice Girls were a British pop girl group formed in 1994. The group consisted of Victoria Beckham , Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Halliwell. They were signed to Virgin Records and released their debut single, "Wannabe" in 1996, which hit number-one in more than 30...

, and *NSYNC. By the summer of 2000, Q95-5 had sunk to fourteenth place in the ratings, while WDRQ had charged into the top ten (though WKQI still outbilled DRQ by a fair margin).

By 2000, the station was owned by AMFM; Clear Channel took control of the station that year when it merged with AMFM. WDRQ continued to win the CHR battle against WKQI for several more years, but on February 4, 2002, Clear Channel re-launched WKQI as "Channel 9-5-5" and began to move the station in a more rhythmic direction to compete more directly with WDRQ. WKQI soon once again took the ratings lead over DRQ. WDRQ's falling ratings culminated in its format switch to "Variety Hits" as "Doug-FM" on April 1, 2005, which left WKQI to have the CHR market to itself in Detroit. Subsequently, WKQI reclaimed its top 10 showing in Detroit's Arbitron ratings.

Channel 955 today

WKQI is currently the home of the popular Mojo in the Morning show, which has been on the air since February 21, 2000. The morning show has enjoyed ratings success, overcoming former legends of Detroit morning radio including Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan is a former American radio personality. His last radio job was as the morning radio show host on Oldies 104.3 serving the Detroit, Michigan U.S. radio market. Purtan was also a disc jockey at WKNR-AM, WXYZ-AM, CKLW-AM and WCZY-FM which became WKQI-FM in 1989...

, Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...

, and The Breakfast Club with Jim Harper. The show is syndicated in the Tucson
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...

 market on HOT 98.3
KOHT
KOHT is a Rhythmic Top 40 station serving Tucson, Arizona, and is licenced to Marana, . It has been owned by Clear Channel Communications since July 30, 2001 and broadcasts at 98.3 MHz with an ERP of 6 kW. The station's playlist is primarily Rhythmic Top 40, hip hop and R&B.-History:KOHT...

.

Capitalizing on the popularity of MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

, WKQI rebranded itself as "Detroit's Hit Music Space" in September 2006. This rebranding ended less than one year later as WKQI created its own on-line social networking site called "The Unit" (August 2007) which encourages listeners to create their own pages in a more user-friendly environment than offered by MySpace.

In 2008 WKQI's HD2 subchannel began carrying the Dance Top 40 Club Phusion
Club Phusion
Club Phusion is a HD2 Dance Top 40 station, one of three Dance-formatted HD2 stations programmed by Clear Channel Communications through their Format Lab, a new division set up to expand music formats over their HD2 subcarriers...

 format, which is part of Clear Channel's Format Lab. It previously had aired a "New CHR" format. WKQI billed Club Phusion as "Bomb Squad Radio" (named after its own stable of club DJs). The station now carries an alternate dance mix-show format from Clear Channel's iHeartRadio
Iheartradio
iHeartRadio is a Clear Channel Radio network to aggregate local radio brands, personalities and on-demand content. It is best known as a mobile application...

 on its HD-2 signal, known as Spin Cycle Radio, which features continuous mix-show programming from a nationwide stable of club DJs. Spin Cycle Radio is also carried on the HD-2 feeds of sister stations WRNW in Milwaukee and WNCI
WNCI
WNCI is a radio station in Columbus, Ohio. Its official print brand identifier is WNCI 97.9 in a purple oval, while the station is known on-air as 97.9 WNCI...

 in Columbus
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

.

WKQI also formerly offered Clear Channel's Pride Radio format, featuring a mix of mostly dance music oriented toward the LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 audience, on an HD3 subchannel; Pride Radio has since moved to the HD2 subchannel of Classic Rock
Classic rock
Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...

 sister station WDTW-FM
WDTW-FM
WDTW-FM is a classic rock formatted radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications. WDTW-FM is licensed for HD Radio operations; its secondary channel carries Clear Channel's "Pride Radio" format, which features music geared toward the LGBT audience...

 (replacing the "Mother Trucker" hybrid of country and southern rock formerly heard there).

The station competes for the CHR audience with CBS Radio
CBS Radio
CBS Radio, Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Media. CBS Radio owns around 130 radio stations across the country...

 station WDZH "98-7 AMP Radio", and Cumulus Media
Cumulus Media
Cumulus Media, Inc. is the second largest Owner and Operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States, behind Clear Channel Communications, operating 570 stations in 150 markets as of September 16, 2011. The company also owns Cumulus Media Networks...

  Hot AC-formatted WDVD
WDVD
WDVD is a hot adult contemporary radio station in Detroit, Michigan, broadcasting at 96.3 MHz on the FM dial. WDVD's studios and offices are located in the Fisher Building near downtown Detroit. WDVD's transmitter is located in Oakland County in Royal Oak Township at 8 Mile Road and Wyoming Avenue...

 96.3, which bills itself as "Today's Best Hits Without the Rap".

Channel 9-5-5 currently ranks at #14 (3.2) in the Detroit market according to the October 2011 PPM ratings release.

Controversy

Channel 955 has also attracted controversy for some of its on-air stunts. On October 2, 2007, the day after troubled pop star Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...

 lost custody of her two sons, then-nighttime jock Big Boy (now "Chunky" at 92.3 Now FM in New York City, and voicetracking overnights, still as "Big Boy," on WKQI's competitor station 98-7 Amp Radio announced a "Britney Suicide Watch" contest in which the listener who correctly guessed the day of Spears' death would win $1,000. Although there was no such contest in reality, the stunt drew a large negative outcry, particularly from the suicide prevention community who saw it as trivializing a serious issue for teenagers and young adults in the station's listening audience. The stunt was also decried by the station's own morning show. Cohost "Spike" is an organizer for the Michigan chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and complained on-air that WKQI's then Program Director should have never allowed the stunt to take place.

External links

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