WGAY

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WGAY was a gay-oriented Internet radio station based in Washington, DC found at . Before it moved to the Internet it was a radio station that broadcast in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area on 1050 kHz in the mediumwave AM band and 99.5 mHz on the FM band.

Contents 1 Difference between WGAY (online) and WGAY AM/FM 2 Original WGAY 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] Difference between WGAY (online) and WGAY AM/FM

The internet station features live programs with conversation, unusual music, and comedy, on Friday evenings from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. During the week, it broadcasts re-runs of the show, except on Tuesdays which are "oldies days" and Wednesdays when archived broadcasts of WGTB from the 1970's are aired. WGTB was a legendary and controversial student-run station at Georgetown University. Ultimately the Jesuit school shut the station down because of the radical programming it carried.

[edit] Original WGAY

The WGAY call letters have, ironically, tracked the evolution of the very word "gay". The original WGAY was believed to have been named for its owner, Mr. Connie B. Gay. However, Mr. Gay bought the station in the late 1950's/early 1960's. In the 1950s, WGAY was a country music station.

Back when the term connoted a "bright and gay" happy sound, WGAY was a "beautiful music" station. The original call sign of was WQMR, which stood for "Washington's Quality Music Radio". The owners and operators, Ed Winton and Bob Chandler, are credited with creating the "beautiful music" format, which was mostly instrumental music, with orchestral covers of showtunes, soundtrack excerpts, and standard popular songs. Chandler was known to arrange for recording of music that he did not have in the station's library. In addition, on Sunday afternoons at 1:00 p.m., Matinee at One played a complete Broadway show soundtrack with an explanation of the plot.

Despite its sobriquet of "elevator music", WGAY was popular, and the station increased in power from 1000 watts on the AM band and 20 kW monophonic on the low power FM band to 50 kW FM stereo. The station moved to the World Building on Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1966.

Winton and Chandler sold the station to Greater Media, Inc., which in turn ended the format. The 1050 kHz station became, briefly, WKDV, broadcasting programming aimed at children, then broadcast a Spanish-language format, followed by brokered programming until the station was purchased by Bonneville and became WFED.

[edit] See also

• G.I.R.L.

[edit] External links

• http://www.dcrtv.com - more information on WGAY
• http://www.wqmrwgaymemories.org - more information on WGAY
• http://www.wgay.fm -WGAY