WPGC-FM

WPGC-FM

City of license	Morningside, Maryland/Washington, D.C.
Broadcast area	Washington Metropolitan Area
Branding	"WPGC 95.5" HD2:"Area 955"
Slogan	"DC's Home of at least 18 Jams in A Row" HD2:"DC's Dance Channel"
Frequency	95.5 (MHz) (also on HD Radio)
First air date	March 1958
Format	HD1: Mainstream Urban / Rhythmic Contemporary Hit Radio HD2: Dance Top 40
ERP	50,000 watts
HAAT	148 meters
Class	B
Facility ID	26832
Callsign meaning	We're Prince George's County
Owner	CBS Radio
Sister stations	WIAD, WJFK, WNEW (AM), WNEW-FM, WLZL
Webcast	Listen Live Area 955 - Listen Live
Website	wpgc.com

WPGC-FM is one of the most popular among Washington, D.C.'s urban format radio station's, and has been ranked as one of its top rated radio stations for over 20 years, according to the Arbitron ratings. It has a city of license of Morningside (its studios are located in Lanham) at the 95.5 MHz frequency on the FM dial. Its tower operates at an effective radiated power of 50 kilowatts (kW) and is located in Capitol Heights, Maryland. It also formerly shared the WPGC calls with sister station WPGC-AM, which once played urban gospel music (the AM station is now talk as WHFS). In 2005, WPGC began broadcasting in IBOC digital radio, using the HD Radio system from iBiquity. Despite being a Rhythmic contemporary station according to Mediabase reports, it primarily plays urban contemporary music (as Nielsen BDS reports it as an urban), making WPGC-FM an urban-leaning rhythmic station (the other being KBFB in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas). In addition, WPGC-FM is the only rhythmic targeted towards Baltimore listeners, putting competition up against WERQ, a Radio One-owned urban contemporary station & WZFT, a Clear Channel owned contemporary hit radio station. It is the only CBS Radio rhythmic in the Eastern United States to use its calls as a branding on-air; while the other two -- KSFM in Sacramento, California & KLUC-FM in Las Vegas, Nevada are both in the Pacific Time Zone & Western United States.

On-air personalities

WPGC-FM is the station home to several personalities including:

6-10a weekdays

• Free host
• Julie Wright traffic
• Guy Lambert news
• DJ Heat producer

10a-2p weekdays

• Sunni

2-6p weekdays

• DJ Flexx
• DJ Reddz mixer

6-10p weekdays

• Mr. Peter Parker host/mixer
• Toney Redz producer

10p-2a weekdays

• Herkules

Weekends/Fill-in

• Aladdin
• J. Hall
• Todd B
• Herkules
• Poet
• DJ Akademiks
• Laiya St. Clair
• Big Rodney
• Shack 'n da Pack
• DJ Heat
• Reverend Tony Lee Sunday Morning Hope host
• DJ Book mixer
• DJ Reddz mixer
• DJ Titan mixer
• DJ M&M mixer
• DJ Storm mixer
• DJ Aasha Adore mixer
• DJ Lucky mixer
• DJ Jealousy mixer
• Big Tigger
• Nick Cannon

History

The station that later became WPGC-FM signed on as on January 18, 1948, on the 96.7 frequency with the WBUZ call letters. WBUZ was owned by Arthur Baldwin Curtis, president of Chesapeake Broadcasting Company, Incorporated, and was located in Bradbury Heights. WBUZ-FM was broadcasting at 420 watts effective radiated power. The call letters were a play on the word "bus," as WBUZ broadcast background music for a Prince George's County, Maryland based bus company.

WBUZ-FM raised power to 6.3 kilowatts and its city of license was changed to Oakland, Maryland (near District Heights; not the Western Maryland town) in May 1953. Then on June 8, 1953, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a permit to the station to raise power from 6.3 to 18 kilowatts. WBUZ-FM changed frequency from 96.7 to 95.5 megahertz and power was reduced to 16.5 kilowatts from a new transmitter & tower site on Walker Mill Road in Oakland. The calls were changed to WRNC on March 30, 1956. By the end of the year, WRNC was simulcasting the WPGC-AM programming. The ERP was reduced to 15.7 kilowatts while the power increase authorized for the WPGC-AM in 1955 to 10,000 watts daytime only.

WPGC-AM, Inc., purchased WRNC in 1956. The calls were changed to WPGC-FM in March 1958. WPGC-FM temporarily goes silent until February 1959 as new studios were being constructed for the top 40 format. The call letters stand for "We're Prince Georges County", the county in which the station is actually located, but at one time in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was referred to in on-air promos as "Where People Get Cash".

WPGC-FM maintained some form of the top 40 format (skewed from rock 'n' roll-based to Adult Contemporary) until 1984, when it flipped to easy listening/adult contemporary WCLY, "Classy 95."

WPGC logo from 1996 to 2009

The format failed and First Media decided to sell all of its properties for $177 million to a minority interest in early 1987]]. New owners, Cook Inlet Media, a group of Alaska Natives, promptly rebuilt the station as a Rhythmic and reclaimed the legendary call letters, WPGC on May 30, 1987. The station flipped to a successful music format with the brand name "WPGC, 95 Jams". Also in the early 2000s, the branding reverted to simply "WPGC 95.5", dropping the "Jams" moniker from the brand although it still visibly remained on the station's logo and was used in the slogan. In August 2009, the station rebranded again to "95-5 PGC" and changing its slogan from "DC's #1, Blazin' At Least 18 Jamz in A Row" to "DC's Hip Hop and R&B" (and briefly to "DC's Official #1 for Hip-Hop and R&B" in 2010), but now "WPGC 95.5, DC's Home To At Least 18 Jamz in A Row" as of 2011. The "Jams" moniker was also removed from the station's logo and replaced with "wpgc.com".

Even though Nielsen BDS has moved WPGC-FM to the urban panel, it is still on the rhythmic panel on Mediabase, as Radio One's WKYS is its competitor, but is an urban contemporary station. CBS Radio does list the station as an urban on the corporate listings, but in actually it is a hybrid of both formats.

Donnie Simpson hosted The Donnie Simpson Morning Show during the morning drive from March 1993 to January 29, 2010.

Controversy

WPGC-FM also has been a debated topic amongst radio experts about its format classification as a Rhythmic Contemporary Hit radio station even though it really operates musically as a Mainstream Urban. In 1987, when the current format on WPGC was introduced it was actually a mix of R&B, hip-hop, dance and pop titles. However, by 1997, following the departure of longtime programming director and afternoon personality, Albie Dee, its playlist consisted mainly R&B and hip-hop titles. Many critics say the ability to attract more mainstream advertisers as Rhythmic, rather than Urban, is the real reason.

In June 2009, speculation began circulating that WPGC might be evolving towards a Top 40/CHR direction or back to it former urban-leaning Rhythmic format similar to sister stations WZMX and WMBX. The move might have been fueled by the recent drop in the ratings and in part due to the introduction of PPMs in the market, where it has hurt them audience-wise. However, it has remained a Mainstream Urban (in terms of programming, although still basically considered a rhythmic) that focuses primarily on the current urban hits with some recurrents and throwbacks mixed into its playlist.

In December 2010, WPGC began to open up its playlist to include songs that they wouldn't have touched, i.e. Just The Way You Are from Bruno Mars. This issue of whether WPGC might be shifting to a broader Rhythmic sound continues to be debated on message boards like Radio-Info. Even though WPGC-FM is still considered as a rhythmic, it added more rhythmic-friendly tracks but reduced the urban lean. The station is now beginning to take on contemporary hit radio rival WIHT (Hot 99-5), but despite adding more rhythmic pop, still goes up against urban contemporary rival WKYS full time and urban adult contemporaries rivals WMMJ and WHUR with slow jams on Sunday through Thursday nights from 10pm to 2am.

WPGC-HD2

In March 2006, WPGC launched a HD2 subchannel, which featured a format geared to local Hip-Hop and R&B artists under the billing "Crank." However, by September 2011 the format would be replaced with a Dance Top 40 format, billed as "Area 955."

Sale

Infinity Broadcasting acquired the station and sister station WPGC-AM from Cook Inlet in June 1994 for $60 million. The stations moved to new studios and offices at 4200 Parliament Place, Suite 300 in Lanham, Maryland in the summer of 2000. In January 2006 owner Viacom split into two companies, Viacom and CBS, and the Infinity Broadcasting name was dropped in favor of CBS Radio.

External links

• WPGC Website
• WPGC (Top 40 Format) Tribute Site
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WPGC
• Radio-Locator information on WPGC
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WPGC