Update - sale of WDRQ to Family Life Radio CONFIRMED

[radiofan1974]

Has there been a time in recent memory, where a station flips formats, announced in media but does not change for quite some time like 93.1 is

[48125er]

Wasn't Danny bondauce the morning show host on 95.5 after Dick left, and 93.1's first morning show as DRQ had a Drag queen?

[Colonel Flagg]

Wasn't Danny bondauce the morning show host on 95.5 after Dick left, and 93.1's first morning show as DRQ had a Drag queen?

I believe it was Kevin O'Neill who replaced Purtan.

But I could be wrong.

[MWmetalhead]

Bonaduce replaced Purtan on 95.5; there may have been an interim host in between.

Then came O'Neill, then Steve Cochran (who was a terrible fit for the station).

[armchair pd]

Bonaduce replaced Purtan on 95.5; there may have been an interim host in between.

Then came O'Neill, then Steve Cochran (who was a terrible fit for the station).

This is correct. God I'd forgotten Cochran what an awful show.

Trixie Delux was indeed a co-host on the DRQ relaunch in the late 90's.

[MWmetalhead]

Cochran was a god send for DRQ. His shitty show on KQI compelled bored listeners to deflect to DRQ.

[48125er]

https://youtu.be/yUbLdJBblNo

95.5 at this time reminds me of 95.7 in Grand rapids when it first launched in 2010 as channel.

[MWmetalhead]

Gotta love the extremely obnoxious pitching up / speeding up / whatever you wanna call it of the music and voiceover promos.

The moronic PDs and consultants who thought that sound was smart need to be sucker punched.

[BKRPDM]

Bonaduce replaced Purtan on 95.5; there may have been an interim host in between.

Then came O'Neill, then Steve Cochran (who was a terrible fit for the station).

This is correct. God I'd forgotten Cochran what an awful show.

Trixie Delux was indeed a co-host on the DRQ relaunch in the late 90's.

I enjoyed the Joe Mama show with Trixie. Sabrina Black (RIP) was part of the show, too.

[48125er]

Gotta love the extremely obnoxious pitching up / speeding up / whatever you wanna call it of the music and voiceover promos.

The moronic PDs and consultants who thought that sound was smart need to be sucker punched.

95.5 back then reminds me of a Top 40 or Rhythmic AC station in Northern Michigan or other rural areas think of 96.9 in Port Huron or 105.3 in Jackson not a then 20 market. by the voiceovers and safe music.

JoJo Kincaid was definitely NOT a good fit for Top 40, I'd say this era except for DRQ Was Detroit radio at it's lowest.

Who in their right mind would play John Mellencamp or Elton John on a top 40 station in 1998, They WE'RE LONG into AC territory by then.

[MWmetalhead]

Yup. 95.5 was trying to sound CHR without having to play anything with an "urban" flare. That strategy worked well for a while. Star 94 in Atlanta followed the same general strategy.

Jo Jo was considered one of the very best CHR jocks in the 80s and early 90s (Howard Stern has even played some of his old airchecks from San Diego on the air), but by the late 90s, his style seemed to clash with where the format was heading.

Around 1999 or so, WKQI began calling itself "Detroit's Hit Music Leader," which was comical given how much music the station continued to avoid. Things got better in 2001, which is when Mojo, Spike & Sara joined the station and DJ changes in all other dayparts were also made. Still, the station's music position overall was conservative versus DRQ at the time.

It wasn't until 2003, when the rebrand to Channel 955 occurred, that the station finally embraced current rhythmic / urban hits, which quickly sent DRQ into a tail spin, along with DRQ's own self inflicted wounds.

[ChrisWL1980]

I remember 95.5 in the late '90s as being very heavily dayparted. There were times during the evenings that they sounded almost CHR, which is when they tended to play most Urban hits (except for artists like Toni Braxton who had AC crossover appeal and were considered "safe"). They had the Top 8 at 8 countdown for a time (later jettisoned in favor of an all-'80s hour) and even had Open House Party on Saturday nights. During the day, though, there was lots of gold going back to the late '70s - Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger, a few disco songs like "I WIll Survive" and "Hot Stuff" to keep listeners from going to then-Rhythmic AC WDRQ - and they sounded like a slightly hipper version of WNIC minus the Michael Bolton. They had always been pretty conservative with anything with a beat, going back even to the Z95.5 days.
They were also very slow to respond to the teen pop boom. WDRQ was first with the Spice Girls, Britney Spears and the boy bands, while WKQI instead playlisted stiffs like Bryan Adams' "On a Day Like Today" and Sheryl Crow's cover of "Sweet Child O'Mine." They let DRQ own the hot music of the day, which worked to DRQ's advantage when 93.1 shifted to the slightly-dance-leaning CHR/Pop direction that finally made the station a winner after three years of floundering.
BTW, the changeover to Channel 955 happened in early 2002. I remember that specifically because I was about to graduate from college when the shift occurred.

[armchair pd]

Yup. 95.5 was trying to sound CHR without having to play anything with an "urban" flare. That strategy worked well for a while. Star 94 in Atlanta followed the same general strategy.

Jo Jo was considered one of the very best CHR jocks in the 80s and early 90s (Howard Stern has even played some of his old airchecks from San Diego on the air), but by the late 90s, his style seemed to clash with where the format was heading.

Around 1999 or so, WKQI began calling itself "Detroit's Hit Music Leader," which was comical given how much music the station continued to avoid. Things got better in 2001, which is when Mojo, Spike & Sara joined the station and DJ changes in all other dayparts were also made. Still, the station's music position overall was conservative versus DRQ at the time.

It wasn't until 2003, when the rebrand to Channel 955 occurred, that the station finally embraced current rhythmic / urban hits, which quickly sent DRQ into a tail spin, along with DRQ's own self inflicted wounds.

The Channel rebrand wasn't necessarily the worst thing to happen to DRQ at the time, that might have been Steve Kosbau.

[Mega Hertz]

Even after all that, one thing that sticks out to me more than anything is, the night DRQ flipped to Doug FM, 95.5 was playing a hit from 50 Cent's new album every 15-20 minutes in celebration because "certain other stations wouldn't and now they're not around anymore".

[radiofan1974]

Is this up there with one of the longest times that a station is being flipped, in this case being sold for a completely different format and has stayed the old format, if one did not know what was going on and you were listening you would think there was no change going on