WARQ

WARQ is a Modern Rock radio station licensed to Columbia, South Carolina and serves the Columbia market. The Inner City Broadcasting outlet is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to broadcast at 93.5 MHz with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 2.8 kW. The station goes by the name Rock 93.5 and its current slogan is "New Rock Now."

History

WARQ signed on the air as WXRY on February 6, 1971 in mono with a Beautiful/Easy Listening music format. Later, the station converted to FM stereo, still with a Beautiful/Easy Listening music format supplied on reel to reel tape by Schulke.

In 1983, the station adopted the call letters WCEZ and maintained the Beautiful/Easy Listening format, with the slogan "The Beautiful Place to Be" and "Easy 93 WCEZ."

Shortly after the sale of then WCEZ (along with sister WVOC AM 560) to Ridgley Communications, the station abandoned the automated reel-to-reel Beautiful/Easy Listening format to a light rock format that incorporated more vocals and fewer traditional instrumentals. WCEZ then adopted the moniker "Lite 93.5" and began broadcasting a satellite-delivered light rock format supplied by Westwood One networks known internally as "Format 41."

Ridgley Communications later filed for bankruptcy protection and a private ownership group in the Fall of 1989 purchased WCEZ/WVOC out of bankruptcy. The group of owners, which included Olympia Networks Steve Bunyard and broadcast veteran Rick Dames, organized and operated the stations under the Clayton Radio name.

In January 1990, Clayton Radio replaced the satellite-delivered Westwood One Format 41 with a Gold-based WARM AC format developed by McVay Media. The station adopted the moniker Star 93.5 and the call letters WAAS. As unfortunate as the transpositions were, the call letters were designed to put the station at the top of the Arbitron rating service list of stations and stood for "We Are Always Shining." The jingles used by WAAS were customized versions of JAM's "Q-Cuts" package.

By 1992, WAAS was at a crossroads. The station was experiencing financial difficulties as well as a ratings battle with 2 other ACs in the market, WTCB and WSCQ (now known as WVOC-FM). That August the station, in a rather bold move, dropped AC for Active Rock (with select Classic rock cuts) under the "Rock 93.5" handle. The new call letters became WARQ and the station set out to battle established AOR/Classic rock hybrid WMFX for the rock audience.

In early 1995, WARQ was sold to new owners and the studios were moved with new sister station WWDM. When the move was completed, a brief stunt was done on April Fools' Day when WARQ dropped Album Rock for Hip hop as "93 Jamz" for about an hour. After the stunting was done, Rock 93-5 was relaunched with a new on-air slogan "Real Rock". At that point, the station segued toward a more Active/Alternative Rock hybrid, but would eventually become a full Alternative station by early 1996 dropping the "Real Rock" slogan in the process for "Columbia's Rock Alternative".

In 1999, a new handle known as "Channel 93-5" was adopted by Clear Channel. This lasted until 2004, when the "Rock 93-5" moniker was reclaimed after Inner City bought it.

The station is owned by Inner City Broadcasting, which also owns Urban Contemporary WHXT, Urban AC WWDM, Classic rock WMFX, ESPN Radio outlet WZMJ and Air America Radio outlet WOIC in the Columbia radio market.

External links

• Official Website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WARQ
• Radio-Locator information on WARQ
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WARQ