| City of license | Medina, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Akron, Ohio |
| Branding | FM 94.9 WQMX |
| Slogan | Your Station! Your Country! Akron's Own Country |
| Frequency | 94.9 (MHz) |
| First air date | August 15, 1988 (as WQMX) October 17, 1960 (as WDBN) |
| Format | Country |
| ERP | 16,000 watts |
| Class | B |
| Callsign meaning | W-Q-"MiX" (former format) |
| Owner | Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. |
| Sister stations | WAKR, WNWV, WONE-FM |
| Website | WQMX.com |
WQMX (94.9 FM) — branded FM 94.9 WQMX — is a commercial country radio station serving to the Akron, Ohio metro area. It is licensed to nearby Medina, Ohio and is owned by the Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WAKR and WONE-FM.
The station signed on the air as WDBN on October 17, 1960 and featured a beautiful music format. Branded as The Quiet Island, WDBN was one of the early adopters of the beautiful music format that minimized announcements and included no vocal music. Jim Schulke, one of the early beautiful music format programmers, developed much of his programming philosophies at the station.
WDBN was also an early adopter of FM stereo, broadcasting in FM stereo by November 1961. When the FCC limited stations in the area to a maximum ERP of 50 kW, WDBN was "grandfathered" and allowed to maintain its 118 kW signal. As a result, the station blanketed the Cleveland market and could be heard throughout Northeast Ohio and was frequently heard as far away as Flint, Michigan, although its signal in the City of Cleveland was spotty due to the terrain between Cleveland and Medina.
With the popularity of beautiful music in the 1960s, WDBN became very successful. Soon other stations in the market flipped to beautiful music, including WQAL, WDOK, WKSW, WAEZ and WBEA. WQAL soon began to dominate, and WDBN lost market share, despite utilizing some of the area's legendary broadcasters, including Jeff Baxter, Walt Henrich, David Mark,Tom Field, Gary Short and Jim Field. Henrich, Mark, and Jim Field were eventually heard on WKSW. Walt Henrich was also heard on WDOK while David Mark was popular on all of the aforementioned stations except WAEZ. Eventually the audience for beautiful music became older, and less desirable, and the format was changed to adult contemporary in August 1988.
The station was sold to Gordon-Thomas Communications, Inc., headed by Thom Mandel, on June 2, 1988. It changed its callsign to WQMX on August 15, 1988 and became "Mix 94.9." It switched to a country format on April 5, 1993. Gordon-Thomas Communications changed its name to Rubber City Radio Group on December 6, 1993, the same day that it purchased WAKR and WONE-FM.
Under Rubber City's direction, the station has targeted the Akron broadcast market ("Akron's Own Country"), though it is still heard in much of the Cleveland area.
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