WSTR (94.1 MHz, "Star 94") is an FM

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

licensed to

Smyrna, Georgia Smyrna is a city in Cobb County, Georgia, United States. It is located northwest of Atlanta, and is in the inner ring of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. It is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs–Alpharetta MSA, which is included in the Atlanta� ...

, and serving the Atlanta metropolitan area. Owned by Audacy, Inc., it broadcasts a

rhythmic adult contemporary Rhythmic adult contemporary, often abbreviated as rhythmic AC or RAC, is an adult contemporary radio format. The format focuses primarily on rhythmic hits aimed towards an adult audience, often resembling a mixture of the classic hits and hot adul ...

format. Its studios are located at

Colony Square Colony Square is a mixed-use development and sub-district in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, located on Peachtree Street in between 14th and 15th Streets. The oldest high-rise development in Midtown, the sub-district was built between 1969 and 1975, ...

Midtown Atlanta Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown, is a high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used by the city, residents, and local business ...

, while the station transmitter resides in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

Reynoldstown Reynoldstown is a historic district and intown neighborhood on the near east side of Atlanta, Georgia, located two miles from downtown. The neighborhood is gentrifying and attracting new families, empty-nesters, Atlantans opposed to long comm ...

neighborhood.

History

Early years

The station signed on as WDJK on January 1, 1964, founded by WSMA (1550 AM) owner Mitchell Melof; WDJK operated as a

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/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, simult ...

of WSMA. Jupiter Broadcasting of Georgia, then the owner of WQXI (790 AM), purchased WDJK in January 1965, with Kent Burkhart serving as vice president and general manager. WDJK's

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 assig ...

was changed to WKXI and a

beautiful music Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator m ...

format was installed, with studios at 2970 Peachtree Road NW in Atlanta. The Pacific and Southern Company, forerunners to the modern-day

Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Greater Washington DC, Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Tegna Inc., purchased WQXI and WKXI in November 1967.

WQXI-FM (1969-1989)

In 1969, the station changed its call letters to WQXI-FM to match its AM sister station. In mid-1977, the station started calling itself "94Q" when WQXI's

contemporary hit radio Contemporary hit radio (also known as CHR, contemporary hits, hit list, current hits, hit music, top 40, or pop radio) is a radio format that is common in many countries that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by ...

format was moved to the FM station. Around 1987, WQXI-FM's audience share began to dwindle. Various tweaks were made to the music mix, followed by an outright change of direction in late 1988 that competed head-to-head with then-dominant Top 40 outlet WAPW (99.7 FM) as "Atlanta's Hit Music, 94Q." However, by the following spring, WQXI-FM had been soundly beaten, and the station began to purge most of its management and on-air talent. WQXI-FM notably carried a

smooth jazz Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. History Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 1 ...

-themed program called ''Jazz Flavors'' during the late 1980s. Despite the seeming incompatibility between it and contemporary hits, this program ran on WQXI-FM for several years, eventually serving as the genesis for the "Jazz Flavors" branding on WJZF (104.1 FM) when that station became the first one in the Atlanta market to adopt the format full-time.

WSTR (1989-present)

At midnight on November 15, 1989, "94Q" signed off after 12 years, with the final song being " Imagine" by

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

. 94.1 would then relaunch as "Star 94" with the call letters WSTR. The first song on "Star 94" was " Oh Atlanta" by

Little Feat Little Feat is an American rock band formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Lowell George and keyboardist Bill Payne in 1969 in Los Angeles. George disbanded the group because of creative differences shortly before his death in 1979. Surviving ...

. The station's format was a hybrid of

Hot AC Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, qui ...

and Top 40, best described as

Adult Top 40 The Adult Pop Airplay (formerly known as Adult Pop Songs and Adult Top 40) chart is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and ranks "the most popular adult top 40 as based on radio airplay detections measured by Nielsen Broadcast Data System ...

. The station initially avoided most hip hop and rhythmic-oriented music hitting the Top 40 charts, though it added some rhythmic songs in the mid-1990s.

Steve McCoy Steve McCoy is an American radio personality best known for his morning show with Vikki Locke in Atlanta, Georgia for over 18 years on WSTR (FM), WSTR. The duo was twice nominated for the Marconi Award. McCoy came to Atlanta in 1981 to work at WZ ...

was brought in as morning show host and was paired with Vikki Locke; McCoy and Locke would helm the station's morning drive for the next 17 years. After WAPW flipped to

modern rock Modern rock is an umbrella term used to describe rock music that is found on college rock radio stations. Some radio stations use this term to distinguish themselves from classic rock, which is based in 1960s–1980s rock music. Radio format Mod ...

WNNX WNNX (100.5 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to College Park, Georgia, featuring a classic alternative format as "99X". Owned by Cumulus Media, the station serves the Atlanta metropolitan area. WNNX's studios are located in Sandy Sp ...

in October 1992, WSTR was considered the "default" hit music station in Atlanta due to the lack of a mainstream Top 40 outlet; Atlanta once again had a mainstream Top 40 station in 2001 when WWWQ (100.5 FM) signed on.

Hot AC era (2010-2020)

In September 2010,

Nielsen BDS Broadcast Data Systems (also known as BDS or Luminate BDS), is a service that tracks radio, television and internet airplay of songs. The service, which is a unit of MRC Data, is a contributing factor to North American charts published by co-owne ...

moved WSTR from the CHR/Top 40 panel to the Adult Top 40 (Hot AC) panel, as the station became more identified with a Hot AC

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sev ...

. WSTR changed its on-air slogan to "Your Life...Your Music," to emphasize its shift to Hot AC. In February 2011, WSTR began programming all-1990s weekends, called "Big 90s Weekends" in response to the all-1980s weekends on WSB-FM (98.5). However, in the Fall of 2011, the station dropped the All-90s weekends. Jefferson-Pilot Communications (and later Lincoln Financial Media) had owned WSTR and WQXI since 1974. On December 8, 2014,

Entercom Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...

announced its purchase of Lincoln Financial Media's entire 15-station lineup, including WSTR and WQXI, for $106.5 million. The stations were operated under a

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...

(LMA) until the sale was approved by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisd ...

(FCC). Entercom officially took over WSTR and WQXI on July 17, 2015; WQXI was spun off to Atlanta Radio Korea in 2016. In November 2017, Entercom merged with

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broa ...

, making WSTR co-owned with

WZGC WZGC (92.9 FM) – branded 92-9 The Game – is a commercial sports radio station licensed to serve Atlanta, Georgia, covering the Atlanta metropolitan area. Owned by Audacy, Inc., WZGC is the Atlanta affiliate for CBS Sports Radio; the flag ...

WVEE-FM WVEE (103.3 FM, "V-103") is a commercial radio station in Atlanta, Georgia. It is owned by Audacy, Inc. and airs an urban contemporary radio format. WVEE is one of the highest-rated stations of the Atlanta radio market according to Nielsen Aud ...

and WAOK. In 2019, the station aired

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject m ...

during the holiday season for the first time.

Rhythmic AC era (2020-present)

On September 17, 2020, the station began teasing a "big announcement" to come at 3 p.m.; the use of the word "big" seemed to allude to previous reports the station was soon to flip to adult hits as "Big 94" (matching a similar recent format change on cross-country sister station WBGB in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

). At that time, after playing " Closing Time" by

Semisonic Semisonic is an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1995, consisting of Dan Wilson (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), John Munson (bass, keyboards, backing vocals, guitar), and Jacob Slichter (drums, percussion, keyboards ...

, WSTR instead relaunched with a

format, maintaining the ''Star'' branding while promoting the new focus as "The NEW Star 94" under the slogan "The Rhythm of ATL", with the first song being " Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" by

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

Notable alumni

Several influential air personalities have worked at the station, including

Ryan Seacrest Ryan John Seacrest (born December 24, 1974) is an American media personality and producer. He is the co-host of ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'', as well as the host of multiple media shows including ''American Idol'', ''American Top 40'', and '' ...

. Seacrest interned on the night show with Tom Sullivan, who also helped train him; Sullivan gave Ryan his first "on air" shift, and eventually he began working weekends, Ryan did this while still attending

Dunwoody High School Dunwoody High School is a public high school in Dunwoody, an incorporated city in DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. Dunwoody enrolls students in grades 9- 12, and is operated by the DeKalb County School System. It follows a four by four ...

HD Radio

The HD2

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 compressi ...

airs a

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 198 ...

format under the brand "Star 94.1 HD2". The HD3 channel airs Audacy's

LGBTQ+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

talk/dance format "

Channel Q Channel Q (stylized as CHANNEL Q) is an LGBT lifestyle talk and EDM top 40 radio network created, owned, and operated by Audacy, Inc. The network airs on the Audacy internet radio service, as well as on Audacy-owned terrestrial radio stati ...

References

External links

* * {{Entercom STR Rhythmic adult contemporary radio stations Radio stations established in 1964 Audacy, Inc. radio stations