107.3 FM in Washington, D.C. has been Hot AC as “Mix 107.3″ since 1990. But in the 12 years prior, it was CHR/Top 40 as “Q107″. This is a sample of the station fromtthe peak era for the Mainstream CHR format in the mid 80’s – although the station arguably had what today sounds like a slight Adult lean. And two years later, Q107 offered a rather “hairband”-heavy approach. Thanks to Robyn Watts for contributing both of these airchecks.
Our sister site, Airchexx.com, also features a pair of Q107 samples:
In addition, below are a pair of articles from The Washington Post about the flip from Q107 to Mix 107.3:
Podcast: Embed
WRQX has actually gone back to a CHR format as of late 2013, as “All the Hits 107-3.”
What happened to the jingles? I thought Q107 was making extensive use of jingles during this era. As for the AC lean, they were probably doing lots of day parting, as CHR stations were known to do back then.