WHUR-FM

WHUR-FM is an Urban Adult Contemporary radio station that serves the Washington D.C. area. WHUR is licensed to Washington, D.C. and is owned by Howard University. Also, the staff of the station mentors the students of the university's school of communications. WHUR is also the home of the original Quiet Storm, which loyal D.C. listeners have rated number one in the evening since 1976. Jeff Brown hosts the program Quiet Storm weeknights beginning at 7:30 p.m. In 2005, it also began broadcasting in IBOC digital radio, using the HD Radio system from iBiquity.

History

96.3 FM began back in the 1940s as Rockville Md. based WINX, as an FM simulcast of WINX 1600AM. It had the slogan, "Sounds like Washington", to reflect the station's local ownership. WINX was originally owned by the Washington Post during the 1940s and early 1950s. United Broadcasting Corporation bought the station in the 1950s and moved the station from Washington to Rockville. During the 1950s the station played a wide variety of music and was known as the "Rockville Music Library". In the early 1960s, with the popularity of the FM band still fifteen years in the future, the AM station switched to top 40 format and took the FM along in the simulcast was one of Washington's most popular stations. Station owners The Washington Post Company later moved WINX-FM to Washington DC and paired it with their established WTOP-AM and the calls were changed to WTOP-FM. For a while the station broadcast CBS Radio's early seventies "Young Sound" programming.

The Washington Post Company later donated radio station WTOP-FM to Howard University "to stimulate the intellectual and cultural life of the whole community and to train more people for the communications industry." On December 6, 1971, the station changed its call letters to WHUR-FM. WHUR became a jazz-formatted radio station which it remained until the 1990s when it switched to an Urban Adult Contemporary format.

By 1995, WHUR became one of the highest rated radio stations in the market, right behind WPGC-FM. Also that year, WHUR became the Washington radio and flagship affiliate of the syndicated Tom Joyner Morning Show (TJMS). However, in 1999,ABC Radio networks did not renew its contract with WHUR and moved the show to WMMJ, thus ending its four year relationship with the station. WHUR was forced to produce its own locally-based morning drive show. This initially somewhat affected the station's dominance over rival 'WMMJ. WHUR in 2002 acquired The Michael Baisden Show and later in 2005, The Steve Harvey Morning Show. The station regained its top two spots in the market to date pacing #2 in the 12+ demographic and #1 in the 25–54 age group demographic and clearly the number one urban formatted station in D.C. The Quiet Storm format of mellow, rhythm and blues/soul music, smooth jazz and love songs often played at night on many radio stations started at WHUR. The format originated when then intern Melvin Lindsey played a soothing string of songs during a particularly bad storm in the mid-1970s, even as power was cut to most of the other radio stations in the Washington, DC area. Today, the station owns the rights to the name "Quiet Storm", and any radio station wishing to use the term must pay WHUR a royalty.

External links

• WHUR Website
• March 28, 2005 Michael Baisden replaced Doug Gilmore & Lorna Micheals on WHUR weekday afternoons Scroll down to 'radio' section
• March 2006 DC Listeners Upset Over Switch To National Morning Radio Show

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