and soft vocals. It was launched on December 28, 1987, as WVAE, 92-3 The Wave, modeled after Los Angeles' successful KTWV. Much of the programming on WVAE was satellite-fed, and the station also featured comedy bits at the top of each hour to introduce the new hour. "The Wave," an attempt to appeal to the "yuppie" audience, never achieved high ratings, but did have loyal fans, though it was in competition with beautiful music WJOI and longtime jazz station WJZZ, which began to play more contemporary jazz, new age and fusion material around that time. 92-3 The Mix/WMXD On November 30, 1989, the station became The Mix as WMXD. Originally starting out as a Rhythmic Adult Contemporary outlet and playing a wide variety of adult R&B and pop music, WMXD evolved into its current Urban AC format by late 1991 under the guidance of operations manager Kris McClendon. Ratings success came quickly after the station tapped the then-underserved Detroit audience for classic soul music. Detroit did have an AM classic soul station in WMTG, but that AM station's directional signal could not be heard in the city's East Side and other communities at night. WMXD was one of the four radio stations in the Barden, Michigan area (along with WRIF, WMUZ and WJZZ) that were used on Barden Cablevision's character generated line-up throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By 1993, WMXD was showing up regularly in the top 10 of Detroit's Arbitron ratings, and the format has endured since, surviving several ownership changes. In 1994, the station was sold from Fritz Broadcasting to Booth American, which merged with Broadcast Alchemy shortly afterward to become Secret Communications, forming a duopoly with longtime Detroit urban contemporary powerhouse WJLB. Just a few months later, Secret sold the stations to Chancellor Media, which later merged with Evergreen Media to become AMFM, which was swallowed up by Clear Channel in 1999. The Steve Harvey Morning Show Until late June 2005, WMXD was the Detroit affiliate for the popular syndicated Tom Joyner morning show. In June 2005, Radio One relaunched its "Kiss FM" gold-based Urban AC format on the 105.9 frequency (now WDMK), moving 105.9's hip-hop format to 102.7 (now WDKL) and grabbing Joyner for mornings on 105.9. WMXD subsequently brought in a parade of celebrities such as soul singer Kenny Lattimore to host the morning show until a permanent replacement could be found. The station finally