City | Columbus, Georgia |
---|---|
Branding | R&B 92.1 |
Frequency | 1420 kHz |
Translator(s) | 92.1 W221DP (Columbus) |
First air date | 1923 (as WRBL at 1200) |
Format | Urban AC |
Power | 5,000 watts day 79 watts night |
Class | D |
Facility ID | 72090 |
Transmitter coordinates | 32°29′52″N 85°02′48″W / 32.49778°N 85.04667°W |
Callsign meaning | Radio Columbus Georgia |
Former callsigns | WRBL (1923-?) |
Former frequencies | 1200 kHz (1923-1940s) 1230 kHz (1940s-?) |
Owner | PMB Broadcasting LLC |
Sister stations | WRLD-FM, WKCN, WCGQ |
Webcast | Listen Live |
Website | rnb921.com |
WRCG (1420 AM) is an urban adult contemporary-formatted radio station in Columbus, Georgia. WRCG previously held the call letters WRBL. As WRBL, the station first operated on the frequency of 1200 kHz before being reassigned in the early 1940s to 1230 and later to 1420 with a power of 5 kW. In 2010, the station began simulcasting at 106.9 FM with a broadcast translator. Its studios are co-located with four other sister stations on Wynnton Road in Columbus east of downtown, and its transmitter is located in Phenix City, Alabama.
The station is an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves radio network.
WRCG was formerly WRBL ("Wee-Rebel Radio" although the call letters originally referred to "Wireless Radio's Bill Lewis" a broadcast engineer pioneer who put the station on the air in the late 1920s)from which WRBL-TV (Channel 3) and WRBL-FM (102.9 FM) sprang. The station was a conventional format of CBS Radio network programming, "pop" and country music, personality, sports and local news through the 1940s and 1950s. It added a high powered (50KW) FM channel(transmitter on Pine Mountain linked by a pioneering STL system)in 1949 simulcasting its AM. The music was phased out with the rise of FM radio. It became WRCG (Radio Columbus Georgia) when the TV and radio went their separate ways after the death of long time owner, Jim Woodruff, Jr.
In December 2002, McClure Broadcasting, Inc., (Chuck McClure Jr., president) reached an agreement to sell this station to Archway Broadcasting Group (Al Vicente, president/CEO). This was part of a four-station deal, along with WRLD-FM, WCGQ, and WKCN, for a reported combined sale price of $15 million. At the time of the sale, WRCG carried a news/talk radio format.
On July 31, 2008, local investment group PMB Broadcasting LLC (headed up by Jim Martin) purchased this station along with Columbus-area sister stations WRLD-FM, WCGQ, and WKCN from Archway Broadcasting Group LLC for a reported sale price of $7.2 million. The deal was approved by the FCC on October 1, 2008.