Location: 4414 Lafayette Blvd, Fredericksburg 22408
Phone: 5408919696
Cell: 540-226-5616
About Me
I have been at the station since it's birth in 1986. In 1988 it was sold to Telemedia Broadcasting, Inc. where I stayed on as GM. In 2001, we bought a CP which allowed us to build our second FM in the market. We have the two 6K watt FMs - WGRQ - Classic Hits and WGRX - Country. We compete against Alpha which has a 50K watter, 2 class A's and an AM with a translator. Our other competitor is Centennial and they also have a 50K watter, plus an AM. Fredericksburg is currently Neilsen market #138 and we anticipate possibly breaking into the 120's after the census data is released. It is unique that we subscribe to Neilsen for both books, Alpha subscribes for FALL only and Centennial subscribes to Eastlan.
My Market
Fredericksburg is regarded as America's most historic city. Tourism is big for our downtown area which still has a pharmacy that has an active lunch counter. Our "market" is made up of Spotsylvania, Stafford, King George, Caroline and Orange Counties along with the city of Fredericksburg. This is a huge commuter area and the morning drive to Washington DC for government and government contractors starts as early as 3:30am. I-95 is a parking lot in morning and afternoon drive and is a vacation killer to those returning from the beaches in the summer time. Delays can add 4-5 hours to a return home trip. We are a heavy military area with Fort AP Hill, Dahlgren Naval Base, Quantico and Fort Belvoir. Many in our area work at the pentagon or nearby government agencies.
We now have a minor league baseball team in Fredericksburg and a new stadium. 2020 was suppose to be the inaugural year, but we all know how that went. We are heavily involved in the promotion of the team and are the only station that broadcasts afternoons live from the stadium prior to games on Friday nights.
My Stations
WGRQ FM is classic Hits. We call it Superhits and it has evolved from an Oldies station in the 90's and early 2000's to now playing 80's and 90's. We are live in morning and afternoon drive, voice track mid days and air Tony Lorino's Throwback Nation at night. I have a veteran staff with some employees passing the 25 year mark. As you know that is both a blessing and curse. We are very remote and appearance heavy and spend quite a bit on promotions. We have a Director of Sales, 7 sales people, (some who have other duties), a promotions director that sells, a production director, a traffic director, a music director, an admin assistant, plus the on air team. Several Part timers do voice tracking on the weekends as well as assist with promotions and remotes.
WGRX is Country. We lean toward classic country because our competitor in mainstream with a 50K stick. We still do local news in morning drive. It is being done by our mid day voice tracker. We are live in the morning and afternoon and voice tracked in mid days and nights.
Both stations are heavy into traffic reports and we recently just added traffic reports to mid days and returned it to weekends. We stream both stations, have Alexa skills for both stations and smart phone apps.