Asian press, and closed an evening broadcast of the CBS Evening News with a chuckle from Walter Cronkite. The Disco programming was a short-lived experiment, and by late 1979, the format had evolved into a CHR/Urban hybrid format (also known as "CHUrban", which is the forerunner of the rhythmic contemporary format). WPEG has been considered Charlotte's heritage urban radio station since 1982, when the Suburban Radio Group purchased 1600 AM (WGIV), and gradually moved their format to the FM station. Popular announcers of its days in this format have included Fred Wellington Graham, Thomas "Skip" Murphy, Michael Saunders, Les Norman, B.J. Murphy, George "Apollo" Fetherbay, Helen Little, Barbara Taylor, Todd Haygood, Nate Quick, Michael "Captain Mike" Rossi, Darryl McClinton, Shirley Girl, Sheila Stewart, Janine Davis, Anthony "Tone X." Belser, Eddie Owens, with Consuella Williams, and Bobby Harris. The station was branded "WPEG fm98" until 1988 when they rebranded as "Power 98". Sky Broadcasting would buy WPEG and WGIV in November 1986 after Suburban Radio Group's owners died. Sky would be bought out by Broadcast Partners, Inc. (BPI) in 1992. When BPI bought out Rhythmic-formatted WCKZ from Beasley Broadcasting, they ended that format by moving WGIV's then-Urban AC programming from the AM dial to the 101.9 FM position and merging WCKZ's programming with WPEG, thus tilting WPEG's Urban format towards a Mainstream direction (with an emphasis on hip-hop) at the same time. The station continues to thrive in the market. BPI would merge with Evergreen Media in May 1995. In December 1996, WPEG (as well as Evergreen's 4 other Charlotte stations) was traded to EZ Communications (owners of WSOC-FM and WSSS; WRFX would then go to SFX Broadcasting), with Evergreen receiving EZ Communications' Philadelphia stations WIOQ and WUSL in return (EZ would then be bought by American Radio Systems in July 1997). ARS would be bought out by Infinity Broadcasting on September 19, 1997, with Infinity changing its name to CBS Radio in December 2005 as part of the spin-off of CBS' motion picture and cable television assets under a relaunched Viacom. On October 2, 2014, CBS Radio announced that it would trade all of their Tampa and Charlotte stations (including WPEG), as well as WIP in Philadelphia to the Beasley Broadcast Group in exchange for 5 stations located in Miami and Philadelphia. The swap was completed on December 1, 2014. References External links WPEG website Mainstream urban radio stations in