WKYS (93.9 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, United States. The station is owned by

Urban One Urban One, Inc. (formerly Radio One) is an American media conglomerate based in Silver Spring, Maryland. Founded in 1980 by Cathy Hughes, the company primarily operates media properties targeting African Americans. It is the largest African-Ame ...

through licensee Radio One Licenses, LLC, and broadcasts an

urban contemporary Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contemporary r ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

. It is co-owned with

WMMJ WMMJ (102.3 FM), known on air as "Majic 102.3 & 92.7," is an urban oldies-leaning urban adult contemporary radio station owned by Urban One in the Washington, D.C. market. It is co-owned with WKYS, WOL, WPRS-FM and WYCB and has studios ...

, WOL,

WPRS-FM WPRS-FM (104.1 FM) is an urban contemporary gospel formatted radio station in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The station is licensed to Waldorf, Maryland, and is co-owned with WKYS, WMMJ, WOL and WYCB and has studios located in Silve ...

, and

WYCB WYCB (1340 AM) is a radio station in Washington, D.C., featuring an urban gospel format known as "Spirit 1340 AM". Owned by Urban One, its studios are in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the transmitter site is in Capitol Heights, Maryland. WYCB ...

, with radio studios and offices in

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially Unincorporated area, unincorporated, it is an edge city with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ...

. WKYS has an

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would ha ...

of 24,500 watts. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

tower is on Nebraska Avenue NW, co-located with the tower for

WRC-TV WRC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Washington, D.C., serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Class A television service, Class A Telemundo outlet W ...

(WKYS' former TV

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

). WKYS broadcasts using

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...

technology. The urban talk programming of co-owned WOL

1450 AM The following radio broadcasting, radio stations broadcast on AM broadcasting, AM frequency 1450 kHz: 1450 AM is a Regional and Local broadcast frequency. Argentina * LRJ211 in San Juan. * LRI203 El Sol in Buenos Aires. Bermuda *VSB Canada ...

was heard on its HD3

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

. The HD3 subchannel has since been turned off.

History

WRC-FM

The station first

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

the air as WRC-FM in . It was launched alongside its television partner,

(originally as WNBW). Both were built from the ground up by

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

, which put WRC

980 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 980 kHz: 980 AM is classified as a regional broadcast frequency by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ...

on the air 24 years earlier. The

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

represents the name of the parent company, The

Radio Corporation of America RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

or RCA. During its early days, WRC-FM

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

most of WRC's programming with some

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

music also played. In the late 1960s, FM stations in larger cities were no longer permitted to simulcast most of their programming. FM 93.9 began an

automated Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

beautiful music format, largely soft instrumental songs played in quarter-hour sweeps. At the same time, 980 WRC was airing a

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

format, playing current hits for young listeners. In 1974, 93.9 switched its call letters from WRC-FM to WKYS, standing for "Kiss-FM".

Top 40 and Disco

The transition to what is now WKYS occurred when NBC moved the Top 40 format that was on WRC to the FM station. That was to make way for an

all-news radio All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to the discussion and broadcast of news. All-news radio is available in both local and radio syndication, syndicated forms, and is carried on both major US satellite radio networks. All-news sta ...

format being launched on the AM station. For a short time in 1975, the two stations simulcast Top 40 music as listeners were redirected to 93.9 FM. Shortly after the simulcast was discontinued, WKYS decided to modify its Top 40 sound. Instead of a blend of rock, pop and R&B hits, all popular on Top 40 stations, management noticed the coming boom in

disco music Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightlife, particularly in African-American, Italian-American, Gay and Latino communities. Its sound features four-on-the-floor ...

. The FM station became "Disco 93.9" in 1975. DJs during the disco era included Donnie Simpson, Jack Harris, Stoney Richards, Joe Cipriano, Eddie Edwards, Barry "Reazar" Richards, Bill Bailey, Jeff Leonard, Chuck Davis, Candy Shannon and Max Kinkel.

Urban contemporary

The disco format eventually evolved into the present urban contemporary format as "93.9 Kiss FM". DJ Donnie Simpson became Kiss-FM's program director. In the mid-1980s, WKYS gained competition from 102.3

and 95.5

WPGC-FM WPGC-FM (95.5 MHz) is a commercial broadcasting, commercial radio station city of license, licensed to Morningside, Maryland, and serving the Washington metropolitan area. It is owned by Audacy, Inc., and airs an urban contemporary format. WPG ...

. While that caused a setback in its dominance, WKYS did not suffer a huge of a threat to its ratings and audience share. It later began competing with 96.3 WHUR-FM, which converted its jazz format to

urban adult contemporary Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music on ...

in 1993. (Washington D.C. is one of the few large radio markets to have multiple urban stations on the FM dial for a long time).

Changes in ownership

When NBC divested all of its radio properties in 1988, WKYS was sold to Albimar Communications. In the 1990s, Albimar ran into financial difficulties. In 1995, the station was sold to Radio One (the original name for current owner Urban One). In the mid-1990s, WKYS was forced to drop the "Kiss FM" name and changed it to "93.9 WKYS" due to

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a company founded by ...

acquiring the rights to the KISS-FM branding. Clear Channel chose to enforce its trademark rights nationwide. However, WKYS reintroduced the "Kiss FM" name for a period of time and Clear Channel did not make further claims of legal action. WKYS later retired the "Kiss FM" moniker and simply began calling itself "93.9 WKYS".

Past shows

From 1977 to 1993, WKYS was home to radio and TV personality Donnie Simpson. The station was also once the

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyal ...

of the nationally syndicated '' Russ Parr Morning Show''. In January 2016, Parr moved to sister station WMMJ to take over after Tom Joyner left. Parr was replaced on WKYS by "The Fam in the Morning". The current wake-up show is "The Morning Hustle". From 1983 to 1990, Kevin "Slow Jammin" James hosted his "Slow Jam" radio show from 7 pm to midnight, on Saturdays and Sundays.

References

External links

* * {{Urban One 1947 establishments in Washington, D.C. Radio stations established in 1947 KYS Urban contemporary radio stations in the United States Urban One stations