WQDR-FM

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WQDR-FM is a country music station located at 94.7 on the FM frequency and based in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is owned and operated by Curtis Media Group, which is also based in the same city.

[edit] History

Durham Life Insurance Company signed on WPTF-FM, then at 94.5 MHz, in 1949. The station, which would later move to 94.7 MHz, transmitted from an antenna atop one of sister station WPTF 680 AM's three towers in what is now eastern Cary, near Interstate 40 East. Both stations were based in downtown Raleigh at 410 Salisbury Street.

WPTF-FM aired a classical music format in the late 1960s and early 70s, before making radio history as one of America's first stations to use consultant Lee Abram's "Superstars" album oriented rock format, signing on as WQDR in December 1973. (call letters stood for QuaDRophonic). Abrams, a young programmer who was answering top-40 radio request lines in Detroit at an exceptionally early age, created an alternative to the free-form progressive rock formats common in larger cities at the time. WQDR, playing deeper album cuts from the mega-stars of the late 60s/early 70s, and targeting its news and other non-music programming to a young audience's seemingly insatiable appetite for rock music, became an almost overnight success. Much of this success could be attributed to Abrams' use of extensive audience research, a novel approach at the time. He went on to offer the format across the US and the world in later years, indelibly putting his stamp (for better or worse, depending on your opinion) on rock radio forever. WQDR was widely acknowledged to have been his first success. Abrams is now head of programming for XM Satellite Radio.

In its rock days, WQDR garnered some highly impressive listener ratings. Among the many memorible air-personalties during the WQDR rock era were Mike Koste, Bill Hard, David Sousa, Frank Laseter, Bob Heymann, Steve Mitchell, John Scott( John Chrystal), Chris Miller, and Keith Wilson. In later years, the airstaff included Greg Wells, Jo Leigh Ferris, Daniel Brunty, Tom Gongaware, Bob Walton, Rockin' Ron Phillips, Tom Guild, Brian McFadden, Cabell Smith, Bob Robinson, and even Pat Patterson, who was hired in 1979 after years at crosstown top-40 WKIX to do mornings. In 1981, WQDR's News Department won a Peabody Award for a series produced by Joan Siefert on Vietnam Vets, an accomplishment almost unheard of at the time for a rock-music oriented radio station.

In 1977, the Durham Life group added a television station, Durham-based WRDU-TV channel 28. WQDR would soon join the newly-rechristened WPTF-TV from a 1,200-foot tower that stood off Penny Road in Apex.

Despite continued success into the 1980s, rock music on WQDR was not part of Durham Life Broadcasting's plan for WQDR. In the summer of 1984, they announced plans to switch WQDR's format to country in September. This predictably set off a howl of protest from listeners, and added media coverage for the station and its staffers. When Durham Life flipped WQDR to country music in early September 1984, several former announcers and a number of off-air personnel reappeared on a new station across town, WRDU-FM. The running joke at the time was that WQDR stood for "We Quit Doing Rock".

WQDR'S switch to country brought a format formerly found on a smattering of local AM signals under one high-fidelity commercial FM umbrella. . Durham Life moved WQDR and WPTF radio from Salisbury Street to new studios at 3012 Highwoods Boulevard in North Raleigh in the mid-1980s, where they were joined by WPTF-TV, which moved from studios on NC Highway 54 in Durham. On December 10th, 1989, WPTF-TV, broadcasting from a 2,000-foot antenna near Garner, lost its tower when it collapsed due to uneven ice thawing. WPTF-TV returned to their former Apex site with WQDR, to be joined by WRAL-FM, whose site on the WRAL-TV tower was also destroyed that same day. When WRAL-TV and WPTF-TV rebuilt a common tower at the Garner site, both radio stations soon moved to the new site. Now broadcasting from a much higher antenna level, WQDR's power was cut to 96,000 watts to keep it within the legal parameters of a class "C" FM station. In 1991, Durham Life divested its broadcast properties, with WQDR and sister AM station WPTF going to what is now Curtis Media Group.

[edit] Programming

Its morning radio team, dubbed "The Q Morning Crew," features Mike Wheless and Mike Raley and the latest additions, Janie and Marty. It is one of its most popular morning radio shows in the Research Triangle. WQDR also airs MRN and PRN radio broadcasts of the NASCAR Nextel Cup series races.

As of the mid-2000s, WQDR is consistently one of the top-rated radio stations in the Raleigh-Durham market.

[edit] External links

• WQDR-FM website