WQRS
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WQRS-FM is a radio station at 98.3 FM in Salamanca, New York in the Olean, New York broadcasting area. The station broadcasts as "98.3 Q-Rock" and is owned by Pembrook Pines Media Group.
WQRS primarily broadcasts programming from ABC Radio Networks's "The Classic Rock Experience." The lone exception is that program director Scott Douglas hosts the local morning show.
WQRS also airs the nationally syndicated "The House of Hair" with Dee Snider on Friday nights.
The station had been known as WQRT-FM, branded as 98 Rocks, under the ownership of Michael Washington until the year 2006, when Washington sold the station to its current owners.
[edit] History of the WQRS call letters
WQRS was a classical music station in the metro Detroit area at 105.1 FM on the dial. Its transmitter was in Southfield, Michigan.
WQRS began broadcasting on March 6, 1960. Classical music was one of the most common formats on the fledgling FM dial during the 1950s and 1960s, but WQRS continued with fine-arts programming long after most other FM stations in Detroit had dropped it. Personalities such as Dave Wagner and Dick Wallace were well-known to fans of fine music in the Motor City.
A rapid-fire series of sales of the station in the mid-1990s was the first inkling to the listeners of WQRS that the station's classical format was on thin ice. Marlin Broadcasting sold the station to American Radio Systems in 1996; American Radio Systems sold the station to Secret Communications that same year, and then Secret Communications sold its Detroit holdings (including WQRS and urban contemporary stations WJLB-FM and WMXD) to Evergreen Media Corporation (which later was absorbed into AMFM, which was subsequently absorbed into Clear Channel). Evergreen was now over FCC ownership limits in Detroit and let go of WQRS, trading the station to Greater Media for $9.5 million and in exchange for a station in Washington, DC.
Greater Media initially promised to retain WQRS' classical music format, but on November 21, 1997, at 5 p.m., "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails signified the end of classical music on 105.1 after over 37 years and the beginning of Alternative Rock station 105.1 "The Edge". The station adopted the new calls WXDG the following month. Detroit already had two alternative rock stations in CIMX (88.7) and WPLT (96.3), and "The Edge," although it sounded more "progressive" and "free-form" than the competition, was a failure in both ratings and revenue.
The laid off DJs went their separate ways: Dave Wagner turned his attention to giving organ recitals; Charles Greenwells hosted pre-concert talks for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Jack Goggin became a customer service representative at Harmony House Classical in Royal Oak, where he explained to customers that although WQRS was making money (with advertisers like stockbrokerage firm Roney & Co.) it was not enough to sate the station owners' greed.
With the appearance of the classical/jazz station WRCJ in 2005, Dave Wagner came back to radio.
AM Stations: 550 | 930 | 1360 | 1450 | 1490 | 1590
FM Stations: 88.3 | 89.1 | 91.3 | 92.9 | 94.5 | 94.9 | 95.7 | 98.3 | 100.1 | 101.5 | 102.5 | 106.3
