WMSI-FM
Encyclopedia
WMSI-FM is a radio station
in Jackson, Mississippi
, and owned by Clear Channel Communications
. WMSI's signal covers a roughly 90 mile radius around the city with an ERP of 100,000 watts.
, Greg "Fingers" Taylor and Paul Davis
were played, and occasionally saw their songs achieve local hit status. The ZZQ playlist, like AOR in general, imitated top-40 in that it featured hot, recurrent and gold rotations, but the "hits" were album tracks as often as singles, and the so-called "hot rotation" was much looser. Typically 6 hours or more would pass between successive plays of even the top-10 rock songs.
The WJDX news department (one of the best in the South at the time) maintained a presence on WZZQ, which took newsbreaks at fifteen minutes past every even-numbered hour beginning 6am weekdays, plus two extra morning drivetime newscasts and an extra afternoon drivetime, the last scheduled newsbreak of the day running at 6:15pm. WZZQ was the only FM station in Jackson at the time to broadcast so-called skycopter traffic reports. These were not featured regularly, but when traffic was particularly complex Nancy Bell would provide live updates from the WJDX "Flying J".
Each weekend, newsman Howard Lett hosted a popular call-in talkradio show on 'ZZQ called "Point-CounterPoint." The King Biscuit Flour Hour was another weekend highlight; it featured popular rock musicians recorded in concert. For several years, Sunday nights featured one or two classic radio shows, usually including The Shadow
.
In 1981, despite ZZQ's high ratings, new owners switched the station to a county music format, changed the calls to WMSI-FM, and immediately adopted the name "Miss 103".
Currently, it has continued to decline and lose market share since the early 2000's.
TODAY
WZZQ102 has been reborn as an Internet radio station (www.wzzq102.com). Its format, while similar to the broadcast station which went dark in 1981, is much more flexible with its playlist. The station broadcasts 24/7 and calls on over 55,000 individual tracks from artists like Warren Zevon, Bonnie Raitt, REM and newer artists such as Ben Folds, Beck and the Flaming Lips.
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, and owned by Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...
. WMSI's signal covers a roughly 90 mile radius around the city with an ERP of 100,000 watts.
History
The station began in the early 1960s as an FM sister to WJDX (620 AM), broadcasting easy listening music. In 1968, WJDX-FM switched to a progressive rock format, calling itself "WJDX, the Rock of Jackson" and becoming one of the first stations in the South to adopt what was then considered an underground format. Initially, deejays were granted complete control over the playlist, but a fairly loose rotation system was gradually imposed over the first few years. In 1973, the call letters were changed to WZZQ. By this time, the format had evolved into a local version of AOR (Album Oriented Rock), influenced but never restricted by Radio & Records weekly published music charts for that format. Mississippi artists such as B.B. King, Muddy WatersMuddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, Greg "Fingers" Taylor and Paul Davis
Paul Davis (singer)
Paul Lavon Davis was an American singer and songwriter, best known for his radio hits and solo career which started worldwide in 1970. His career encompassed soul, country and pop music...
were played, and occasionally saw their songs achieve local hit status. The ZZQ playlist, like AOR in general, imitated top-40 in that it featured hot, recurrent and gold rotations, but the "hits" were album tracks as often as singles, and the so-called "hot rotation" was much looser. Typically 6 hours or more would pass between successive plays of even the top-10 rock songs.
The WJDX news department (one of the best in the South at the time) maintained a presence on WZZQ, which took newsbreaks at fifteen minutes past every even-numbered hour beginning 6am weekdays, plus two extra morning drivetime newscasts and an extra afternoon drivetime, the last scheduled newsbreak of the day running at 6:15pm. WZZQ was the only FM station in Jackson at the time to broadcast so-called skycopter traffic reports. These were not featured regularly, but when traffic was particularly complex Nancy Bell would provide live updates from the WJDX "Flying J".
Each weekend, newsman Howard Lett hosted a popular call-in talkradio show on 'ZZQ called "Point-CounterPoint." The King Biscuit Flour Hour was another weekend highlight; it featured popular rock musicians recorded in concert. For several years, Sunday nights featured one or two classic radio shows, usually including The Shadow
The Shadow
The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crime-fighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town"...
.
In 1981, despite ZZQ's high ratings, new owners switched the station to a county music format, changed the calls to WMSI-FM, and immediately adopted the name "Miss 103".
Currently, it has continued to decline and lose market share since the early 2000's.
TODAY
WZZQ102 has been reborn as an Internet radio station (www.wzzq102.com). Its format, while similar to the broadcast station which went dark in 1981, is much more flexible with its playlist. The station broadcasts 24/7 and calls on over 55,000 individual tracks from artists like Warren Zevon, Bonnie Raitt, REM and newer artists such as Ben Folds, Beck and the Flaming Lips.