| City of license | College Park, Georgia |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Atlanta metropolitan area |
| Branding | Rock 100.5 |
| Slogan | "Atlanta's Rock Station" |
| Frequency | 100.5 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| Translator(s) | 97.9 W250BC Riverdale |
| First air date | January 12, 2001 |
| Format | Album-oriented rock (AOR) |
| ERP | 12,500 watts |
| HAAT | 298 meters (978 ft) |
| Class | C2 |
| Facility ID | 73345 |
| Callsign meaning | Ninety-Nine X (previous moniker) |
| Former callsigns | WHMA-FM, WWWQ |
| Owner | Cumulus Media |
| Sister stations | WWWQ, WKHX, WYAY, W255CJ, W250BC, WCNN (Managed by Cumulus) |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | atlantasrockstation.com |
WNNX (100.5 FM, "Rock 100.5") is an Atlanta radio station that is owned and operated by Cumulus Media. The station broadcasts from the same building as its other Cumulus Atlanta sister stations WWWQ FM 99.7 ("Q100") and 99X. WNNX's main transmitter is located in downtown Atlanta atop the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, the skyscraper well-known for its reflective glass cylinder shape.
On Monday, January 28, 2008, at 6:00 a.m., The Regular Guys announced the debut of Rock 100.5, carrying a radio format similar to their previous station WKLS FM 96.1 (formerly "96 Rock"), which itself changed formats as "Project 9-6-1". Rock 100.5's first song was "Baba O' Riley" by The Who.
In 2010, Rock 100.5 became the FM flagship station of the Atlanta Braves along with WCNN.[1]
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The 100.5 frequency has been in metro Atlanta, licensed to College Park, since early 2001. Before then, the station was licensed to Anniston, Alabama as WHMA-FM, broadcasting as country music station "Alabama 100". (After the move, that callsign shifted to another existing station in that area becoming WHMA-FM "The Big 95", 95.5 MHz)
Interested in moving the station to Atlanta, owner Robert Gammon proposed that it be re-licensed to Sandy Springs, and remain at 100,000 watts ERP (class C). An agreement had already been made with the nearest co-channel station, WSSL-FM in upstate South Carolina for it to move further away, however that station was sold to Clear Channel Communications in the interim and the agreement was negated. Additionally, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that Sandy Springs was "not a community", citing its unincorporated status and letters of support from local organizations in Sandy Springs that had "Atlanta" as the address. This was despite the fact that it was (and still is) one of the largest cities in the state.
After exhausting his funds in pursuit of the reallocation, Gammon sold the station to Susquehanna Radio.[2] In a revised application before the FCC, Susquehanna proposed a different city of license, College Park. The FCC approved the application, mostly because the new application changed the class of the station from C (up to 100 kW at 600 meters or 1968 feet) down to C3 (up to 25 kW at 100 meters or 328 feet) to protect the licensed broadcast range of WSSL. Susquehanna was also forced to slightly null the station's signal in the direction of WSSL to stay in compliance with spacing rules. The move created spectrum space for two new radio stations in Alabama, but forced Southern Polytechnic State University low-power station WGHR and Georgia Public Broadcasting repeater W264AE (both 100.7 MHz FM) off the air in the Atlanta area. (Ironically, the 99x brand would later itself be moved to such a low-power repeater station.)
W250BC FM 97.9 is a broadcast translator licensed to Riverdale, although its original 6 watts reached only Morrow, Lake City, most of Jonesboro, and part of Forest Park, skimming only the eastern edge of Riverdale. In early February 2009 it was issued a construction permit to move to the "Richland" site in North Druid Hills and go up to 250 watts (but still not reach Riverdale within its official service contour). In November 2007, the FCC approved the sale of the station by Clark Atlanta University (WCLK FM 90.1) to Extreme Media Group LLC of Woodstock, Virginia. It was then transferred via asset exchange to Cumulus Licensing LLC in mid-February 2009, in return for WZBN FM 105.5 in Camilla, Georgia. In January 2009 it requested special temporary authority (STA) to remain "silent" (off-air) for 60 days due to technical issues. On April 17, the translator station began to rebroadcast the signal of 99X on 97.9 MHz using common analog FM. Recent FCC regulatory decisions permit such use of a broadcast translator to rebroadcast in standard analog FM the content of a digital-only HD Radio subchannel of another radio station. Some consider such an arrangement to be a loophole in the intent of the FCC regulations, as the regulations were, they argue, designed to require broadcast translators to be used to fill in for reception gaps inside an existing station's licensed coverage area, not to make channels previously accessible only with less common HD Radio receivers now also available to those with standard, analog-only FM radios.
100.5's first format in Atlanta was top-40 station WWWQ, "Q100", which made its debut in early 2001. Despite its more limited signal, Q100 grew to the point that it often received higher Arbitron listenership ratings than several of its 100,000-watt competitors, including sister station 99X.
Susquehanna continued to pursue a larger signal for the station, eventually earning approval from the FCC to upgrade from class C3 to class C2. The upgrade occurred on October 24, 2005 at 5:00 PM, and is also when the station moved from the Turner tower to the Westin building.
In 2006, Cumulus acquired Susquehanna, including both 99X and Q100. On January 11, 2008, Cumulus announced that Q100 would move to the 100,000-watt signal at 99.7 MHz. Q100 was finally moved off of the 100.5 signal on Friday, January 25, 2008 at 5:45 AM. The two stations swapped callsigns, and the 99X format moved to digital-only HD Radio channel 99.7-2.
Rock 100.5 is the flagship station for The Regular Guys morning show. The show features Larry Wachs, Eric Von Haessler, "Southside" Steve Rickman and Tim Andrews, who is also the show's executive producer. Rickman and Andrews have been on the show since its debut on the station but were later added as official members of the show. Rickman was first as the "3rd Regular Guy" in the beginning of 2009. Then Andrews was added as "4th Regular Guy" later in the year.
The Regular Guys had a two successful runs at cross-town rival and Clear Channel owned 96 Rock before being fired twice. The first firing happened in 2004 when they accidentally aired explicit audio of a discussion with pornographic film actress Devin Lane over a commercial. That audio was intended be played backwards in a bit called "backwards smut" when they returned from the break, mocking the FCC indecency crackdown at the time stemming from the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy. Wachs and Von Hasessler were rehired by Clear Channel at sister station news-talk WGST in March, 2005, before moving back to 96Rock for a second stint starting that summer, but were fired again in 2006 for secretly taping co-workers' conversation in the restroom. The co-workers were 2 DJs from a sister station who tried to sue Wachs over the recording and its broadcast but the case was later dropped for having no merit.
The show rounds out with Mark Owens on board op and assistant producer duties. Before joining The Regular Guys, Owens served as producer for 99X's New Morning X with Sean, Leslie, and Jenners. Before that, Owens was on sister station Q100 as "Phil Terrana", acting as The Bert Show's assistant producer and "man on the street". Owens got his start at 99X working Saturday overnights and in the 99X Free-Loader Dept.
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