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WQXI-FM 94.1 94-Q History

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

Can anybody tell me the history of WQXI-FM when it was Top 40? Is it true that the 94Q handle didn't start till Mid 1977?

I have interesting notes on this station and I want to see if they are right.

Thanks for your help.
T.J.
 
94-Q also provided the radio simulcast for the video music program, "Atlanta Rock Review", which aired on Channel 2 for many years in the early 1980's.
 
I still remember then 11alive business reporter Richard Warner saying that the station was going to be called 94 Mix during a morning news report. He was right about its format but the name actually became Star.

Around this time he reported about that one we would carry around small cell phones and not the large portable phones that existed at the time so he was usually right.
 
when 94.1 Mhz was WKXI it was more like modern Jazz. I'd say when it became Star 94 is about the time it was more top 40 format .
 
WQXI-FM was christened 94Q somewhere in 1977, yes, and remained so until the stroke of midnight on November 15, 1989. The calls were swapped officially in late November to WSTR.

By the end, the AM and FM were simulcasting until January 1990, when WQXI became Big Band.
 
RadioDoogie said:
I do know that it flipped from top 40 94Q to hot AC Star 94 during the last week of December in 1989.
Click to expand...
94Q had pretty much become hot AC by the mid-80s, competing with contemporaries Peach (which was still doing BM/EZ in some dayparts as late as 1985), B98.5, Warm 100/99.7 (until they flipped to Power 99 in 1986), and the early move-in formats of Fox 97 and Lite 106 (106.7).

Before that 94Q was an "AOR hits" format, then top 40.

Back in the WKXI days around 1966-1967, WKXI was running a financial news format.
 
I can remember (at least pre 1978) That the Gary McKee show was on both 790 WQXI and 94Q then at 9 or 10 the two stations "went in different directions" with 94 Q being semi AOR / Classic Rock,* and 790 was Top Forty. The Gary McKee show was differently "top forty". WQXI was one of the stations that play list adds and hits were printed in Billboard Magazine along with WFOM, IIRC.

* I liked the "pyramid of power" ID on 94.1 but that is another tread.
 
Hey Guys:

First let me say thank you for all the posts. You all have been very helpful. It is hard to get exact dates for these format changes but I am trying.

Here is what I have from the yearbooks formaticly for WQXI-FM

Yearbooks
1974 WQXI-Contemporary
1975-1977 WQXI-Top 40
1978 WQXI-Commercial Album Rock
1979-1983 WQXI-Adult Top 40
1984-1985 WQXI-AC, Jazz 5 hrs weekly
1986-1988 WQXI-Top 40, Jazz

Jefferson Pilot Aq AM-FM April 1, 1974 so I figure some where in 1974 WQXI-FM changed to Top 40.

I read somewhere that the moniker for WQXI-FM from 1974-1977 was "94-QXI-FM The Music FM" and that it was automated using the Drake Chennault Top 40 format then went LIVE in 1977. In 1977 that is when WQXI became Rock leaning Top 40 (Rock Hits) as 94-Q.

True?

Thanks

T.J.
 
thebeach33445 said:
Yearbooks
1974 WQXI-Contemporary
1975-1977 WQXI-Top 40
1978 WQXI-Commercial Album Rock
1979-1983 WQXI-Adult Top 40
1984-1985 WQXI-AC, Jazz 5 hrs weekly
1986-1988 WQXI-Top 40, Jazz

Jefferson Pilot Aq AM-FM April 1, 1974 so I figure some where in 1974 WQXI-FM changed to Top 40.

I read somewhere that the moniker for WQXI-FM from 1974-1977 was "94-QXI-FM The Music FM" and that it was automated using the Drake Chennault Top 40 format then went LIVE in 1977. In 1977 that is when WQXI became Rock leaning Top 40 (Rock Hits) as 94-Q.
.
Click to expand...

That sounds roughly like what I remember...94Q was top 40/CHR out of the gate (was that a simul of the AM?)...then they dabbled with AOR as a softer version of 96 Rock...and then they started drifting towards AC. 1986-1988 was definitely hot AC if not just regular AC at best, not full-on top 40.

Moniker was 94-Q The Music FM.
94Q.jpg
 
When I first moved to Atlanta in 67...wqxi am was top 40 and wqxi fm was pretty much top 40
but not much talk..just music. FM back then was not listened to much.

I remember Skinny Bobby Harper on some station (could have been WIIN (970) playing
"the night they burned old dixie down" and calling it "the night they burned ole qxi down".
I think he had been fired at qxi.

This was about the time that John Moore was the morning guy at WSB
(I think he played the organ at the FOX too). I believe WSB was #1. WPLO was top 40 too
and their AM towers were on North Druid Hills Rd.
 
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Hey Guys:

As promised here is the history of 94.1:

Nov 8, 1947 WGST-FM Sim WGST-AM 3pm-9pm

Jan 1, 1956 WGST-FM Off Air

July 30, 1959 CP for 94.1 calls WDJK.

Jan 1, 1964 WDJK Sim WSMA 1550

Sept 1, 1965 WKXI Pop Stds (MOR/STDS) with Financial News updates Top and bottom of hour.

March 18, 1968 WQXI-FM Beautiful Music (New Sound-Upbeat Instrumental) This could have been the CBS Young Sound format.

_____________ 1974 WQXI-FM Top 40 (Auto Drake Chennault) "94 QXI-FM"

_____________ Mid 1977 WQXI-FM Top 40 Rock (Rock Hits) "94-Q The Music FM"

_____________ 1979 WQXI-FM Top 40 "94-Q"

_____________ 1984 WQXI-FM (Adult Top 40)Hot AC/Jazz Would anybody know the exact date the Jazz show started?

_____________ 1986 WQXI-FM Top 40/Jazz

12mid Nov 15, 1989 WSTR Hot AC Star 94

If anybody can help me fill in the exact date blanks PLEASE do so.

Thanks for all of your help

T.J.
 
I don't know if this helps, but there was also a period in 1988-89 where 94Q was called "Atlanta's Hit Music 94Q," and it had a format very similar to Power 99. Jan Jeffries was PD, and he banished Jazz Flavours back to Sunday nights 7-midnight.

This format ended by July 1989, and the station was then known simply as "Atlanta's 94Q," and it was on both AM and FM.
 
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Jim Rich was also a voice on them during the business format days.

The AM and FM control rooms faced each other in the old 2970 P'tree studios. Lots of young females doing "projects" for the AM jocks in the lobby on the other side of the viewing panes (such as bending, stretching, etc.) Visited Rich many nights. They were tightly formatted, pre-selected LP cuts. Live business reports, though they were hourly re-writes from the business wires.
 
thebeach33445 said:
_____________ 1984 WQXI-FM (Adult Top 40)Hot AC/Jazz Would anybody know the exact date the Jazz show started?
T.J.
Click to expand...
Craig Ashwood is on these boards every so often and I am sure he would know.
 
bclark71. said:
I don't know if this helps, but there was also a period in 1988-89 where 94Q was called "Atlanta's Hit Music 94Q," and it had a format very similar to Power 99. Jan Jeffries was PD, and he banished Jazz Flavours back to Sunday nights 7-midnight.

This format ended by July 1989, and the station was then known simply as "Atlanta's 94Q," and it was on both AM and FM.
Click to expand...

I remember when Jeffries "killed" Jazz Flavors back to Sunday nights only. IIRC Jazz Flavors dated back to the late 70's, 1977/1978 comes to mind, and it originally was only on Sunday nights from 7P-12A.

My best friend from my old neighborhood's dad got me into jazz back in the early 80s by listening to Jazz Flavors. This was in 1983-1984, and it was on 7 nights a week. He also had a poster in his room of a trombone turned upside down with an ice cream scoop in it that read:

JAZZ FLAVORS...SUNDAES ON ATLANTA'S 94-Q
It was given to him at a jazz festival in 1979/1980.

(I would give anything for one of these!)

So this would put the origin of this program to the late 70s.

Interestingly enough, I called Jan Jeffries when I was in the 8th grade when 94-Q canned the program before they flipped formats that fall (and I started high school). He explained to me that "it is a case of audience erosion. Two totally different kinds of music that conflict with each other. you see, people tune in to hear modern hit music at night and go what is this, and tune out. Once you lose a listener they are gone. Conversely, the jazz listener tunes in during the day to hear rock and then tunes out."

He cited this as a reason for their lag in ratings and basically pinned the failure of 94-Q "The Music FM" on Jazz Flavors causing audience erosion (his words not mine). He also said "some big changes are coming" (eluded to what would happen that fall with the birth of Star 94 and the death of 94Q).
 
fbroce said:
This was about the time that John Moore was the morning guy at WSB
(I think he played the organ at the FOX too). I believe WSB was #1.
Click to expand...

Bob Van Camp was the morning man prior to John Moore at WSB Radio. Van Camp played the organ at the Fox Theatre. Moore waas joined a few years later by Jim Howell on the morning show.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
Was Jan Jeffries still with the station when it became Star 94?
Click to expand...

No. Jeffries left sometime over the summer of 1989 and was replaced with Bill Cahill, who was at the helm through the swap to Star 94. Cahill departed in 1991 and was replaced by Lee Chesnut, who had been the music director at Power 99.
 
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