WMXC

**WMXC** (99.9 FM) is an AC radio station licensed to serve Mobile, Alabama, United States. The station is owned by San Antonio-based iHeartMedia and the broadcast license is held by iHM Licenses, LLC. Its studios are located inside the building of former sister television station WKRG-TV on Broadcast Drive in Mobile, and the transmitter is near Foley, Alabama.

Founded in 1947 as WKRG-FM, the station currently broadcasts to the greater Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, area.

## History

WMXC can trace its history back to October 16, 1947, when it signed on as **WKRG-FM**. The original call letters represented the initials of Kenneth R. Giddens, a movie theatre owner, broadcast pioneer, and architect. Giddens owned the WKRG radio stations and WKRG-TV, the latter of which continues to broadcast with the same call letters. Giddens would go on to head the Voice of America from 1969 to 1977 and served as acting director of Radio Marti in 1985.

WMXC was originally a simulcast of AM sister WKRG — today's WNTM — but adopted a beautiful music format in 1965. During the 1970s, WKRG-FM became the area's first FM Top-40 station and was known as "G-100". The station has offered some form of pop contemporary format ever since. WKRG-FM operated as a Top-40/CHR station until 1986 when it flipped to adult contemporary.

For a time in the 1960s, WKRG-TV, Inc., which was the license holder for WKRG, WKRG-FM, and WKRG-TV, was 50%-owned by the *Mobile Press-Register*. In 1966, when S. I. Newhouse acquired the Mobile newspaper company he also acquired that 50% ownership stake. Newhouse, who also owned radio stations associated with his other two Alabama-based newspapers, would later sell all of these stations to focus on the print side of his media empire.

Station founder Kenneth Giddens, a former board member of the National Association of Broadcasters, died in May 1993. After nearly five decades of operation by the Giddens family, WKRG-TV, Inc., reached an agreement in April 1994 to sell WKRG-FM to Coast Radio, LLC. The deal was approved by the FCC on July 21, 1994. In September 1994, Coast Radio, LLC, flipped the station to Capitol Broadcasting Company, LLC. The deal was approved by the FCC on December 15, 1994, and the transaction was consummated the same day.

The station was assigned the call letters **WKRD** by the Federal Communications Commission on September 12, 1994. This change would prove short-lived as the station was assigned the current **WMXC** callsign on October 3, 1994.

In April 1997, Capitol Broadcasting Company, LLC, made a deal to sell this station to Clear Channel Communications through their Clear Channel Radio License, Inc, subsidiary. The deal, part of the $24 million complete acquisition of Capital Broadcasting, was approved by the FCC on November 21, 1997, and the transaction was consummated on December 31, 1997.

Hurricane Ivan struck the Gulf Coast in 2004, and Hurricane Katrina followed in 2005. On both occasions, the station dropped all regular programming, and along with WKSJ, broadcast local hurricane and recovery information. It was the market's only radio-specific storm coverage. During Katrina, WMXC's continuous local coverage ran for 122 consecutive hours.

In 2006, WMXC began streaming on the Internet but with a different commercial schedule than its over-the-air signal. During 2007, the station started broadcasting in HD. A secondary HD-2 channel is also operating with a full-time Smooth Jazz format, a complement to the primary station's *Smooth Jazz Sunday Brunch*.

## WMXC-HD2

WMXC aired an urban contemporary format on its HD2 subchannel, branded as "100.3 The Beat" (simulcast on FM translator W262BL 100.3 FM Mobile). On January 29, 2018, W262BL/WMXC-HD2 changed their format from urban contemporary (now heard on WRGV 107.3 FM Pensacola) to urban gospel, branded as "Hallelujah 100.3".