| City of license | Detroit, Michigan |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Metro Detroit and Windsor, Ontario |
| Branding | 93.1 Doug FM |
| Slogan | "We Play Everything" |
| Frequency |
93.1 HD-2 Detroit's Party Station Rhythmic AC/Classic Dance |
| First air date | July 9, 1947 |
| Format | Variety Hits |
| ERP | 26,500 watts |
| HAAT | 204 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 70040 |
| Callsign meaning | W Detroit (branding) RadioQ (format) |
| Former callsigns | WLTI (4/15/85-8/10/96) WDRQ-FM (6/25/80-4/15/85) WDRQ (1972-6/25/80) WDEE-FM (1970-1972) WJBK-FM (1947-1970) |
| Owner | Cumulus Media (Radio License Holding I, LLC) |
| Sister stations | WDVD, WJR |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 931dougfm.com |
WDRQ is an FM radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is branded as 93.1 Doug FM. Doug FM broadcasts from the Fisher Building just north of downtown Detroit and transmits its signal from an antenna 669 feet in length located at the intersection of Ten Mile and Greenfield Roads in suburban Oak Park. The station is owned by Cumulus Media.
WDRQ can be heard in the entire Detroit Metro area, and as far west as Lansing, and as far north as Flint and Lapeer.
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WDRQ originally came to Detroit in 1971 as Detroit's first FM talk radio station, with all-news programming weekdays during morning and afternoon drive-time hours (the station's slogan was "DRQ Has News For You"). Prior to 1971, the station had been WJBK-FM and then WDEE-FM, mostly simulcasting the programming of then-sister AM 1500.
Storer Broadcasting signed on WJBK-FM in the summer of 1947. The station initially broadcast only six hours per day but implemented 24-hour operations in October 1947. From 1947 to 1966, WJBK-FM programming was strict 100% duplication of the AM side, and the FM side continued to simulcast through several programming changes. (WJBK-AM was Detroit's first top 40 station, playing hit music from 1956 to 1964. After 1964 WJBK-FM fully and then partially simulcast the AM's new easy listening and then MOR format, and its brief return to Top 40 in 1969. Starting in 1966, WJBK-FM began to introduce separate stereo programming for about 50% of the broadcast day, due to new FCC rules which restricted FM/AM simulcasting.
In late 1969, WJBK-AM/FM became WDEE-AM & FM ("The Big D") and implemented a country format with a Top 40-style presentation. The AM side quickly returned to high ratings; however, WDEE-FM remained virtually invisible. According to a Billboard magazine article in February 1970, WDEE-FM was on the air from 6am to midnight, duplicating the AM programming from 5pm to midnight and during the day airing separate stereo country programming syndicated by Bellingham, WA-based International Good Music.
In 1971, WDEE-FM was sold to Bartell Broadcasting, changed its calls to WDRQ-FM and became Detroit's first FM talk radio station. One of its earliest, and most well-received, programs was The History of Detroit Radio, a documentary on the then-current and past scene of Detroit radio (with special emphasis given to rock and roll stations) put together by longtime radio enthusiast and former Oakland Press radio columnist Arthur R. Vuolo, Jr.
Ultimately, however, the news/talk format proved to be unsuccessful and WDRQ-FM switched to Top 40 as "The Super Q". Bartell at the time owned such legendary AM Top 40 stations as KCBQ in San Diego and WOKY in Milwaukee. Like those stations, WDRQ used consultant Buzz Bennett's fast-paced "Q" format. Like its rival, CKLW "The Big 8", WDRQ featured a tight playlist which leaned toward R&B and soul records, but unlike "The Big 8", WDRQ was not saddled with Canadian Content regulations requiring them to play a certain percentage of Canadian music in their rotation, which enabled them to play only the top hits and enabled them to make strong ratings inroads against CKLW.
Then, in January 1979, WDRQ made a format shift to "Disco 93", inspired by the success of the all-disco format at WKTU in New York City. The move to disco was not received well in Detroit, and WDRQ tumbled out of the top 20 within a few months. Despite plummeting ratings, WDRQ stuck with all-disco through 1979, returned to top 40 in 1980, then adopted an urban contemporary format (with danceable mainstream hits mixed in) in 1982. The station rebounded well, soaring to #2 overall in its debut book with the urban format in the summer of 1982, although the ratings cooled off shortly afterward. "Continuous Music—93FM WDRQ" was a success, and the opening of Beverly Hills Cop features an advertisement for this version of WDRQ on a city bus. Bartell sold the station to Amatuoro Broadcasting in the early 1980s, who later sold it to Keymarket Communications. Viacom later purchased the station in a trade with Keymarket for a station that Viacom owned in Memphis Tenn in the mid-1980s that Keymarket wanted.
The urban format lasted until 1985 when it was replaced by the light rock station WLTI "93.1 The Lite FM." Its morning drive team of Rogers and Holiday featured comedic "celebrity" drop-ins by the spoofed likes of Rodney Dangerfield, Clint Eastwood and Eddie Murphy as well as original characters like Mr. Action.
WLTI initially positioned itself as a cross between more up-tempo AC competitor WNIC and beautiful music Joy 97, featuring a blend of soft hits and oldies from artists like Barry Manilow, The Carpenters, Anne Murray, Olivia Newton-John, and Frank Sinatra. By 1994, most of the easy MOR artists were gone and WLTI had become more contemporary, but the station could never match WNIC for dominance in the AC market.
The WLTI callsign and radio format were resurrected on a radio station in Syracuse, New York.
In July 1996, WDRQ returned to the 93.1 frequency as a Rhythmic Adult Contemporary music station. Viacom sold the station to ABC Radio during this time. Initially the station called itself "The New DRQ: Detroit's Station For Women." With only an announcer used for on-air bumper promos, and without any disc jockeys, the station chiefly played a random mix of programmed dance, disco and pop music from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, with some new music factored in sporadically. More current dance-oriented top 40 music was added to the play list into the fall. By early 1997, a lite mix of pop-friendly R&B and hip-hop music was also adopted to further cement the stations mainstream hook. With this being the first time a top 40/dance music station had been on Detroit radio since the reformatting of 96.3 WHYT two years earlier, DRQ immediately attracted a large listening audience upon its re-launch. Subsequently, the station quickly abandoned the 'for women only' angle and steadfastly recruited a line-up of on-air staff. The station began calling itself "Detroit's Dance Music Station" (later "Today's Best Music," then "Today's Hit Music," and finally "Detroit's #1 Hit Music Station.")
By 2000, the station had evolved into more of a mainstream top 40 station (albeit still geared more toward playing dance music than other like-formatted stations in the area) and was eating away at its adult-leaning top 40 competitor Q95-5. By the final quarter of 2001, both WDRQ and WKQI were leaning very heavily toward Rhythmic CHR. For a time, WDRQ consistently defeated WKQI in the ratings, but after Clear Channel re-launched WKQI as "Channel 9-5-5" in February 2002, WKQI pulled ahead of DRQ—garnering both larger ratings and revenue.
At 1 p.m. EST on April 1, 2005, Disney/ABC Radio (who held the 93.1 FM Federal Communications Commission (FCC) radio broadcasting license in Detroit) abruptly pulled WDRQ off the air, without any warning being given to the listeners or employees. Some thought this was a bad April Fool's Day prank. This, though, was no joke. DRQ was replaced with a variety hits format - "93.1 Doug FM—We Play…Everything!" - similar to that of the various Jack FM and Bob FM stations. The music selection for this format is very broad, similar to that of 96-3 WDVD, 100.3 WNIC, and Magic 105.1, combining a wide variety of songs from the 1960s through the 2000s.
Many former DRQ listeners were both confused by and disgruntled over the format change. Its overall ratings have remained more or less the same since before the reformatting.
ABC sold its non-Radio Disney and ESPN Radio stations, including WDRQ, to Citadel Broadcasting in 2007. Citadel merged with Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011.[1]
On January 29, 2009, WDRQ's HD2 Channel changed to "Doug's Wedding Reception," a mix of variety hits usually heard at weddings. Before that, the HD2 channel had been broadcasting a party hits format using old DRQ jingles from the 1990s.
When WDRQ-HD2 first went on the air, it was originally a simulcast of AM talk station WJR.
As of July 2011, WDRQ-HD2 is once again "Detroit's Party Station," a Gold Rhythmic AC station featuring Rhythmic Oldies and Classic Dance music from the '70s, '80s and '90s.
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