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WBMQ (630 Hertz) was a commercial radio AM radio radio station in Savannah, Georgia. It was owned by Cumulus Media and aired a talk radio radio format. The studios and offices were on Television Circle in Savannah. WBMQ.net/station-information The transmitter was off Dulany Avenue near the Savannah River. Radio-Locator.com/WBMQ
WBMQ's weekday schedule was made up of mostly syndicated conservative talk shows from the co-owned Westwood One Network. They included Michael Savage, Chris Plante, Mark Levin, Clark Howard, Phil Valentine, John Batchelor, Red Eye Radio and America in the Morning with John Trout. Most hours began with Westwood One News. NBC-TV network affiliate WSAV-TV 3 supplied WBMQ with some local news and weather. (At one time, the two stations had been co-owned.)
In 1947, an FM station was added, 100.3 WSAV-FM. It mostly simulcast the AM station's programming, but management did not see much of a future for FM radio and was more interested in building a TV station. Because of this, WSAV-FM stopped broadcasting in the mid-1950s and the license was turned in.
In 1956, WSAV put Savannah's second TV station on the air. WSAV had battled with rival radio station 900 WJLG for the last VHF TV license available in Savannah. (Channel 11 WTOC-TV had gone on the air two years earlier.) WSAV emerged the winner. Channel 3 WSAV-TV became an NBC-TV affiliate, since WSAV was an NBC Radio affiliate.
WBMQ and WSGF were bought by Radio Southeast in 1988. Broadcasting Yearbook 1991 page B-87 Radio Southeast changed WBMQ's format to talk radio in 1990. The station featured local hosts and at night carried syndicated shows from NBC Talknet. World and national news was supplied by CBS Radio News.
In the early 2010s, WBMQ gave up its transmitter site on Oatland Island, and moved to a new location in Savannah, near the Savannah River. Because it was now using a single non-directional tower, it had to reduce its output. Daytime power dropped slightly to 4,800 watts, and nighttime power was reduced significantly to 47 watts. While the daytime signal covered a large region of Coastal Georgia and South Carolina, the nighttime signal only served Savannah and its adjacent communities. Radio-Locator.com/WBMQ
WBMQ's transmitter was damaged by a lightning storm in July 2020, taking the station silent; WJLG, which operated from the same site, would remain on the air at reduced power. On October 9, Cumulus elected to return both stations' licenses to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) instead of making repairs; the surrender also invalidated a construction permit for an FM translator station, W245DD (96.9), to relay WBMQ. WBMQ's license was cancelled on October 13, 2020.
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