Technical Profile: WMGR

AM Technical Profile: WMGR

Frequency:: 930
Format:: Contemporary Christian
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] In Bainbridge, east of downtown south of GA-312 (Martin Luther King Jr Road), east of N Wheat Avenue. Off E Broughton Street, behind the Rural King.
Power (ERP):: Day: 5 kW; Night: 500 watts
Antenna:: Day: 1 tower; Night: 2 towers [pattern - PDF]
Other Information:: 0.5 mV/m Daytime Groundwave Service Contour from the FCC's Public Files

[FCC]
[FCCdata.org]
[FCCInfo]; [Radio-Locator]

[Article] Story from the station's website about the format change from oldies to contemporary Christian music.; [Wikipedia]; Owned by Flint Media (Kevin Dowdy)

// WSEM Donalsonville, GA
// W257BS Bainbridge, GA
History:: This station came on the air in 1948 as WMGR, with the calls standing for the owner of the station (Marvin Griffin Radio). Griffin, a Bainbridge resident and owner of the Bainbridge Searchlight newspaper, later became governor of Georgia in the 50's. The station started out on 1490 kHz with 250 watts, but later migrated to 5 kW days on 930 kHz, where it remains today. The station later picked up 500 watts of night power. In 1950, the station was sold by Griffin to Decatur Broadcasting (John A. Dowdy, president). Under Dowdy's ownership, they would spin up an FM sister station, WJAD.

Although the station was likely a full service format in its early days — with blocks for black and agricultural programming — by the late 70's it was country music. Through the 90's, the station did a stint with oldies, then began adding talk programming until it became a full talk station in the latter part of the decade. It migrated back to oldies in the mid-2000's.

In October 2013, the station was sold by Decatur Broadcasting to Kevin Dowdy-run Flint Media for $160,000. Dowdy eventually paired the station up in a simulcast with WSEM in Donalsonville, which also puts a fringe signal in to the Dothan area. After the acquisition, the station picked up Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel format, which lasted until November 2016, when the station flipped to Christmas music. After the holidays, a contemporary Christian format debuted, keeping the local morning show and Auburn Tigers football broadcasts.