In its early days, WKRG-FM simulcast its AM counterpart. But in 1965, it adopted a beautiful music format, featuring quarter-hour sweeps of soft instrumental music with limited talk and commercials. During the 1970s, WKRG-FM became the area's first Top-40 station on the FM dial and was known as "G-100". WKRG-FM operated as a Top-40/CHR station until 1986 when it flipped to adult contemporary under the name "WKRG 99.9 FM".
For a time in the 1960s, WKRG-TV, Inc., which was the license holder for WKRG, WKRG-FM, and WKRG-TV, was 50%-owned by the Mobile Press-Register daily newspaper. In 1966, when S. I. Newhouse acquired the Mobile newspaper company, he also acquired that 50% broadcasting ownership stake.[9] Newhouse, who also owned radio stations associated with his other two Alabama-based newspapers, later sold all of these stations to focus on the print side of his media empire.
Change in ownership
After nearly five decades of operation by the Giddens family, WKRG-TV, Inc., reached an agreement in April 1994 to sell WKRG-FM to Coast Radio, LLC. The deal was approved by the FCC on July 21, 1994.[10]
In September 1994, Coast Radio, LLC, flipped the station to Capitol Broadcasting Company, LLC. The deal was approved by the FCC on December 15, 1994, and the transaction was consummated the same day.[11]
WMXC
The station was assigned the call letters WKRD by the Federal Communications Commission on September 12, 1994.[1] This change would prove short-lived as the station was assigned the current WMXCcall sign on October 3, 1994.[1]
In April 1997, Capitol Broadcasting Company, LLC, made a deal to sell this station to Clear Channel Communications through the Clear Channel Radio License, Inc, subsidiary.[12] The deal, part of the $24 million complete acquisition of Capital Broadcasting, was approved by the FCC on November 21, 1997, and the transaction was consummated on December 31, 1997.[13][14]
Hurricane Ivan struck the Gulf Coast in 2004, and Hurricane Katrina followed in 2005. On both occasions, the station dropped all regular programming, and along with WKSJ, broadcast local hurricane and recovery information. It was the market's only radio-specific storm coverage. During Katrina, WMXC's continuous local coverage ran for 122 consecutive hours.
In 2006, WMXC began streaming on the Internet but with a different commercial schedule than its over-the-air signal. During 2007, the station started broadcasting in HD. A secondary HD-2 channel is also operating with a full-time Smooth Jazz format, a complement to the primary station's Smooth Jazz Sunday Brunch.
HD Radio
When it first began broadcasting using HD Radio technology, WMXC aired an urban contemporary format on its HD2 subchannel. It was branded as "100.3 The Beat" (simulcast on FM translator W262BL 100.3 FM Mobile). On January 29, 2018, W262BL/WMXC-HD2 changed its format to urban gospel, branded as "Hallelujah 100.3".[15]
On its HD3 subchannel, WMXC rebroadcasts the talk radio programming of co-owned WNTM 710 AM.
^"Directory of the AM and FM stations of the United States". 1952 Broadcasting Yearbook. Washington, D.C.: Broadcasting Publications, Inc. 1952. p. 68.
