The station first signed on in 1952 as WHOO-FM. It was the FM counterpart to WHOO. The stations were owned by WHOO, Inc., and had their studios in the Fort Gatlin Hotel. WHOO-AM-FM simulcast their programming and were network affiliates of ABC Radio.
Beautiful music
By the 1960s, WHOO-FM was airing a beautiful music format, no longer simulcast with its parent AM station. WHOO-FM also carried a commercial-free background music service for stores and restaurants, not available to regular FM listeners, but picked up by using special receivers, through a subsidiary communications authoritysubscription service. WHOO-FM was originally powered at 59,000 watts, using a tower at 1,000 feet. It had listeners throughout Central Florida, from Tampa Bay to Daytona Beach. WHOO-FM was one of the first stations in Central Florida to be heard in FM stereo full-time.
From country to rock
In the 1980s, the subscription music service was sold. With WHOO airing a personality and information-oriented country music format, management decided to flip WHOO-FM to a music intensive country sound in 1984. The station was known as "96 Country." That lasted three years. In 1987, WHOO-AM-FM were bought by TK Communications, Inc. The AM station remained country but on March 1, at midnight, WHOO-FM began stunting with non-stop songs from The Beatles. When the all-Beatles stunt ended, the new owners switched the format to adult-oriented album rock. The station's call letters were changed to WHTQ and it began calling itself "Q 96." In the next couple of years, WHTQ moved to a classic rock format.
Cox ownership
TK Communications was sold to Granum Communications in 1995 for $12 million. In turn, Granum was acquired by Infinity Broadcasting. Infinity quickly spun off WHOO, WMMO and WHTQ to Cox Radio, in order for Infinity to acquire WCKG in Chicago. The classic rock format lasted 23 years. On February 18, 2011, at 5 p.m., after playing "Pride " by U2 and after a commercial set, Cox Radio announced that WHTQ would begin adding new rock songs and recent titles, and modify its moniker to "96 Rock." It began the new format with "Alive" by Pearl Jam. In addition to WHTQ tweaking the classic rock format, WJRR switched back to active rock from alternative rock.
Switch to news/talk
On August 19, 2011 at 5 a.m., just 6 months after the launch of "96 Rock", WHTQ flipped to a simulcast of co-owned News/Talk 580 WDBO. The change followed a decrease in WHTQ's ratings and a decision to give WDBO's talk format a wider audience by putting it on the powerful 100,000 watt FM signal, which switched its call sign to WDBO-FM. The last song played on WHTQ was "Sad but True" by Metallica. The rock format at first continued on the station's HD Radio signal, 96.5-HD2, for a few months after the switch. Currently, 96.5-HD2 is now used to rebroadcast WDBO's news/talk format. WDBO-AM-FM branded itself as FM-96.5 News-Talk WDBO for much of 2012, to emphasize its new availability on FM radio. Programming changes occurred in October 2012, when Clark Howard rejoined the station's lineup after an absence of several years. The Neal Boortz Show was shortened to two hours and aired from 9am-11am, which pushed up the localMel Robbins Show to the 11am-1pm timeslot. These moves coincided with a change in branding to NewsTalk 96.5 WDBO. Shortly afterward, on November 12, 2012, the news/talk format became FM-only, as WDBO AM 580 relaunched as a sports radio station affiliated with ESPN Radio. 580 WDBO became the flagship station for the Orlando Magic Radio Network, with WDBO-FM also simulcasting the games. On April 29, 2013, sweeping changes were made to the station as it was rebranded News 96.5: "Orlando′s New 24-Hour News, Weather and Traffic." From then until 2015, all on-air references to the call sign WDBO were dropped, aside from hourly IDs. The call letters were slowly re-integrated into the branding over the months of October and November 2015. A weekday segment known as "The Three Big Things You Need to Know" was introduced at approximately :15 and :45 past the hour. In addition, Orlando Magic games were heard on the AM station only, and news hours were added at noon and 6pm. In 2015, the station added Dana Loesch's syndicated talk show to the lineup.
Spanish Contemporary
On June 24, 2020, Cox Radio announced that WDBO-FM's news/talk programming would relocate to WDBO 580 AM. An FM translator, 107.3 W297BB, would simulcast the news/talk format. WDBO-FM would switch to Spanish-language Contemporary Hits on June 29. The new format was given the moniker "Éxitos 96.5" or Hits 96.5 in English. Core artists include Romeo Santos, Marc Anthony and Juan Luis Guerra. Its callsign was changed to WOEX on July 14, 2020 to coincide with format change.
