The station first went on the air September 1, 1960, as WHIL-FM, a simulcast of sister station WHIL (now
WKOX), and broadcasting its programming after sunset when WHIL signed off. For much of the 1960s, WHIL and WHIL-FM were
country music stations, but in late 1972, both stations switched to
beautiful music as WWEL and WWEL-FM ("Well"). The calls referred to Wellington Square in Medford, where the station studios were located. Despite moving the FM transmitter to the
Prudential Tower in 1972, WWEL-FM was not very successful as a beautiful music station. In 1978, WWEL-FM broadcast the night games of the
Boston Red Sox as their flagship station (WITS, now
WMEX) delivered a poor night signal in much of Metro Boston. The stations were sold to Heftel Communications, operated by
Cecil Heftel, in early 1979. Heftel changed the callsign to WXKS, adopted "Kiss 108" as an identity, and changed to a
disco format in January 1979. Sunny Joe White, a young programmer (who had previously programmed
WILD in Boston), came aboard at "Kiss 108" upon its shift to disco and had much to do with the station's early success. At the end of 1979, WXKS' AM station dropped disco to adopt an
adult standards format, while WXKS-FM slowly evolved into
urban contemporary when disco's popularity crashed. By the end of 1981 and into early 1982, the station evolved into a
Top 40/CHR with a heavy rhythmic/R&B/dance direction under the guidance of White. WXKS-FM, in turn, became one of the most influential Top 40 stations in the nation, in part due to their reputation for breaking songs that did not fit the traditional Top 40/CHR model, and given that Boston lacked an urban contemporary FM outlet during this period (since WILD was an AM daytimer), it was not afraid to play songs from that genre. (The genre would later become the format now known as
rhythmic contemporary, which is now the current format of sister station
WJMN.) With WXKS leaning towards a rhythmic direction at the time, more mainstream titles were heard in the market on
WVBF-FM,
WROR-FM, and
WEEI-FM. In December 1982, WXKS-FM shifted to a more mainstream Top 40 format. WXKS-FM would compete against WEEI-FM (later WHTT) and WZOU (both competitors would later change formats; WHTT dropped the format in 1986 (though what would become
WODS would again program a Top 40/CHR from 2012 to 2020), while WZOU changed formats and became WJMN in 1993). In 1984, WXKS became an affiliate of
Scott Shannon's ''Rockin' America Top 30 Countdown
, as well as the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40''. In June 1982, Pyramid Broadcasting, headed by station general manager Rich Balsbaugh, bought the station from Heftel. In 1987, White asked Boston icon
John Garabedian (who previously owned, programmed and DJ'd on
WMEX,
WBCN, and
V66/WVJV-TV) to do a weekend shift. Garabedian proposed the idea of a live, nationally syndicated, all-request show called
Open House Party for Saturday and Sunday nights. It was the first of its kind and quickly spread to over 200 radio stations over the next 30 years. WXKS-FM was the show's flagship station until the station dropped the program in 2007, along with most other iHeartMedia stations (then-Clear Channel) because of a company policy that ultimately banned syndicated programming not produced in-house, though
Open House Party consistently had the highest ratings of any show on their stations. In January 1996, Evergreen Media bought the station. On February 9, 1996, sister station
WYNY in New York City simulcast WXKS-FM as part of a week-long stunt of simulcasting sister stations nationwide before flipping formats to
rhythmic adult contemporary the following day as WKTU. In September 1997, Evergreen merged with Chancellor Media. After another merger, WXKS was bought by
Clear Channel Communications, now known as iHeartMedia, in August 2000. From January 14, 2008, until August 2009, WXKS-FM's programming was
simulcast on
WSKX in
York, Maine. After ending the simulcast, WSKX continued to offer a top 40 format until 2012. ==Programming==