History
The station that later became WPGC-FM signed on as on January 18, 1948, on the 96.7 frequency with the WBUZ call letters. WBUZ was owned by Arthur Baldwin Curtis, president of Chesapeake Broadcasting Company, Incorporated, and was located in Bradbury Heights. WBUZ-FM was broadcasting at 420 watts effective radiated power. The call letters were a play on the word "bus," as WBUZ broadcast background music for a Prince George's County, Maryland based bus company.
WBUZ-FM raised power to 6.3 kilowatts and its city of license was changed to Oakland, Maryland (near District Heights; not the Western Maryland town) in May 1953. Then on June 8, 1953, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a permit to the station to raise power from 6.3 to 18 kilowatts. WBUZ-FM changed frequency from 96.7 to 95.5 megahertz and power was reduced to 16.5 kilowatts from a new transmitter and tower site on Walker Mill Road in Oakland. The calls were changed to WRNC on March 30, 1956. By the end of the year, WRNC was simulcasting the WPGC-AM programming. The ERP was reduced to 15.7 kilowatts while the power increase authorized for the WPGC-AM in 1955 to 10,000 watts daytime only.
WPGC-AM, Inc., purchased WRNC in 1956. The calls were changed to WPGC-FM in March 1958. WPGC-FM temporarily goes silent until February 1959 as new studios were being constructed for the top 40 format. The call letters stand for "We're Prince Georges County", the county in which the station is actually located, but at one time in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was referred to in on-air promos as "Where People Get Cash".
WPGC-FM maintained some form of the top 40 format (skewed from rock 'n' roll-based to Adult Contemporary) until 1984, when it flipped to easy listening/adult contemporary WCLY, "Classy 95."
The format failed and First Media decided to sell all of its properties for $177 million to a minority interest in early 1987. New owners, Cook Inlet Media, a group of Alaska Natives, promptly rebuilt the station as a Rhythmic and reclaimed the legendary call letters, WPGC on May 30, 1987. The first song under the new format was "Jam On It" by Newcleus. The station flipped to a successful music format with the brand name "WPGC, 95 Jams". Also in the early 2000s (decade), the branding reverted to simply "WPGC 95.5", dropping the "Jams" moniker from the brand although it still visibly remained on the station's logo and was used in the slogan. In August 2009, the station rebranded again to "95-5 PGC" and changing its slogan from "DC's #1, Blazin' At Least 18 Jamz in A Row" to "DC's Hip Hop and R&B" (and briefly to "DC's Official #1 for Hip-Hop and R&B" in 2010), but now "WPGC 95.5, DC's Home To At Least 18 Jams in A Row" as of 2011. The "Jams" moniker was also removed from the station's logo and replaced with "wpgc.com".
Donnie Simpson hosted The Donnie Simpson Morning Show during the morning drive from March 1993 to January 29, 2010.
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