Silent Station History: WTCG

AM History Profile: WTCG

History:: WTCG signed on in 1984 as Andalusia's third AM station, at 1400 kHz with 1 kW day & night authorized, but the station likely did not stay on the air 24 hours a day; it received permission from the FCC in 1984 for reduced hours of operation. The transmitter location was on Jackson Avenue, just south of 3 Notch Road in the southwestern part of the city.; Put on the air by Bill Hoisington (H&H Broadcasting), it had a MOR (middle of the road) format. The station went off the air in 1988, and was bought out by WTCG Radio Corporation in 1989. It came on the air a few months later in C-QUAM stereo with the Stardust satellite music format. It was sold again in 1991 to Norman Davis, Jr. Under Davis' ownership, the calls changed to WTXQ, in August 1992. In 1993 the ownership changed again to L. Lynn Henley. By 1993 the ownership had apparently changed yet again, to Augustus Broadcasting Network. Throughout this jumble of owners, the format changed to various things: news/talk, R&B and jazz, and possibly even back to MOR/nostalgia type music at one point.

As a side note, the station's original call sign, WTCG, has a bit of history behind it. It was the first set of call letters assigned to a little UHF TV station on channel 17 in Atlanta, that went on to become one of the big "superstations" of the early cable TV era. Ted Turner changed the calls of the station to WTBS in 1979 and the rest is history (and, oddly, so are the 'TBS calls, as Atlanta's channel 17 is no longer related to the TBS cable channel, but instead is known as Peachtree TV and has the WPCH calls.)