Early years The station signed on the air on December 6, 1961, making it the first radio station in Michigan to broadcast in stereo. It was founded by broadcaster Ross Mulholland, who had worked at
WJR and several other area stations. The original
construction permit for the station bore the
call sign WQTI, similar to Mulholland's
easy listening-formatted AM station, WQTE (560 AM, now
WRDT), but the station was never on the air with those call letters. Upon signing on, the call letters were WGPR. Initially, WGPR featured easy listening music similar to that of WQTE. The station was purchased in 1964 by its current owner, the International Free and Accepted Modern Masons (d/b/a WGPR, Inc.), led by Dr. William V. Banks, who served as president and general manager of WGPR until his death in 1985. It is reported that the station's call sign meant "Where God's Presence Radiates", but the original meaning was "Grosse Pointe Radio." The station was originally based at a studio on 20233 Mack Avenue in
Grosse Pointe Woods when it went on the air. The original building still stands and houses a real estate agent. The current studios are located on East Jefferson in Detroit. An
independent television station focusing on shows aimed at African-American viewers was added in 1975, WGPR-TV. On September 29, 1975,
Amyre Porter, Doug Morrison and
Sharon Crews became the nation's first African-American primetime news team. WGPR-TV became a
CBS network affiliate in 1994 following
WJBK's switch from CBS to
Fox. WGPR-TV was sold to CBS in 1995, taking the call sign
WWJ-TV.
Urban Contemporary Under the ownership of the Masons, WGPR transitioned to African-American-oriented programming, including
Urban Contemporary,
R&B,
Soul Music and
Urban Gospel. Some
brokered ethnic programs in Spanish, Italian, Greek and other languages, were on the schedule into the 1990s. The
disc jockey known as
Electrifyin' Mojo was heard evenings on WGPR during the early 1980s. In 1982, during Mojo's tenure at WGPR, the station scored its highest ratings, landing in the Top 10 on several occasions. By the mid-1980s, the station had once again fallen into the lower echelons of the ratings and remained there for the next quarter-century. WGPR was, by October 2011, the lowest-rated of Detroit's three urban AC stations, trailing
WMXD and
WDMK. Nevertheless, the station had a devoted audience. Its ratings were not adversely affected by Detroit's switching from
Arbitron's diary system to
Portable People Meters (PPM).
Jazzy 107.5 and The Rhythm Until October 2011, WGPR featured a mix of
urban adult contemporary hits and
urban oldies. From June 1997 to June 2008, the station was known as "The Rhythm 107-5" or "The Jazzy 107-5", and for several years, featured
smooth jazz mixed in with its urban format. On June 20, 2008, the station reverted to an urban AC format. Saturdays were "Old School Saturdays", featuring a wide variety of classic R&B, soul and dance-oriented oldies. Genres played on OSS included
disco,
funk, 1980s
electronic music,
dance music,
Motown, urban
oldies, and 1970s
R&B. This program was prone to technical errors, including skipping
CDs, varying volume levels between tracks, a song ending midway through and sometimes accidental but simultaneous mix-in of multiple song tracks. Sundays were devoted mostly to urban gospel programming. According to the September 2011 PPM Ratings release, WGPR ranked #20 (2.1) in the Detroit market.
Radio One LMA The current urban format on WGPR began on WCHB-FM (105.9) in 1996, later changing call signs to WDTJ before swapping formats with
WDMK by moving to that station's frequency on 102.7 as WHTD in 2005. On October 21, 2011,
Radio One announced that it would take over WGPR under a
local marketing agreement (LMA), and move
WHTD's
urban contemporary format to the station as
Hot 107.5. Meanwhile, WHTD was to flip to an
urban gospel format as
Praise 102.7 on October 31. On October 24, WGPR signed off as Radio One assumed control, and began
stunting with a loop of "
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" by
Boyz II Men. This was interspersed with promos redirecting WGPR listeners to Radio One's urban AC station WDMK (whose competition was neutralized by the format shuffle). On October 26, 2011, WGPR re-launched as
Hot 107.5.
WIZF alum Big Greg (also known as Buckie Naked) was the first DJ on air, followed by future
106 & Park host Shorty Da Prince on nights and Paigion on mid-days. The WHTD call letters did not move with the frequency shift; the call letters now belong to an AM radio station in
Toccoa, Georgia. WGPR featured the
syndicated Rickey Smiley morning show until October 2014, when it was replaced with
The Morning Heat, a local show with Big Greg, Foolish, and Deelishis. In the December 2013 Detroit PPM ratings report, WGPR ranked 14th 6+ among subscribing stations, with a 3.6 rating to rival WJLB's 4.2.
End of Urban One LMA On June 10, 2019, Urban One announced that it would not renew its LMA with WGPR when it expired at the end of 2019. The same day,
Beasley Broadcast Group announced that it would acquire WDMK and its
Detroit Praise Network stations for $13.5 million. WGPR is once again run by a staff employed by the Masons. It has remained a Mainstream Urban outlet, competing with WJLB, WMXD, WDMK and
WMGC-FM. == HD Radio ==