WJAI (93.9 FM) is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

broadcasting a

Christian Worship In Christianity, worship is the act of attributing reverent honour and homage to God. In the New Testament, various words are used to refer to the term worship. One is ("to worship") which means to bow down to God or kings. Throughout most ...

format from

Air 1 Air1 is an American Christian radio network. Owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF), it primarily broadcasts contemporary worship music, and is a sister to the EMF's K-Love network. History In 1986, KLRD began broadcasting Christia ...

. Licensed to

Pearl, Mississippi Pearl is a city in Rankin County, Mississippi, Rankin County, Mississippi, United States, located on the east side of the Pearl River (Mississippi-Louisiana), Pearl River across from the state capital Jackson, Mississippi, Jackson. The population ...

, the station serves the

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

area. The station is currently owned by the

Educational Media Foundation Educational Media Foundation (formerly EMF Broadcasting, abbreviated EMF) is an American nonprofit Christian media ministry based in Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. EMF is the parent company of K-LOVE and Air1—the world's largest ...

(EMF).

History

In July, 2008,

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

-based

Backyard Broadcasting Backyard Broadcasting was a radio broadcasting company that primarily owned radio stations in medium-sized, small and rural markets in the United States. The company was owned by the private equity firms Boston Ventures Management and Pacific Corp ...

sold WRXW to

Inner City Broadcasting Corporation The Inner City Broadcasting Corporation ("ICBC") was an American media company based in New York City. It was one of the first broadcasting companies wholly owned by African-Americans. History Inner City was founded in 1970 by a group of prominen ...

. In August of that year, WRXW briefly

stunted Stunted growth is a reduced growth rate in human development. It is a primary manifestation of malnutrition (or more precisely undernutrition) and recurrent infections, such as diarrhea and helminthiasis, in early childhood and even before birth, ...

, making its listeners think the station was about to switch to

classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...

, but in actuality, the only on-air change WRXW had made, under orders from Inner City, was dropping the

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

-based, nationally syndicated morning show,

Lex and Terry ''Lex and Terry'' is a syndicated morning radio program hosted by Lex Staley and Terry Jaymes. Lex and Terry is Based in Dallas, Texas, the show is distributed by United Stations Radio Networks. It is heard during weekdays on radio stations throug ...

, which was replaced with ''The Morning Wood'', a "live and local" morning show featuring program director Brad Stevens and Mandy Scott. Several on air staff changes were also made: Mandy Scott hosted middays, Joe Knight in afternoons, and Moose at night. Since then, the sale/LMA to Inner City fell through, and WRXW moved back to its original mobile home studio in a field under control of Backyard Broadcasting and subsequently started cleaning house due to money troubles. In late 2011 the station would be sold to EMF. On January 17, 2012 at Midnight, EMF took control of the station, which changed its format to the

Radio Network, under the calls of WJAI. Rock 93.9 continued as an internet-only radio station. But on September 30, 2015, Rock939.com went silent. Its owner, Brad Stevens, had an increasingly busy schedule (work, family), so he simply did not have enough time to run his now-defunct internet-only radio station.

References

External links

* * JAI Radio stations established in 1998 Air1 radio stations JAI 1998 establishments in Mississippi Educational Media Foundation radio stations {{Mississippi-radio-station-stub