and alternative rock music, which was starting to become popular during this time. In March 1993, AT&T would acquire the stations temporarily due to Adams' bankruptcy while a permanent owner was being sought. Pyramid Broadcasting, then-owners of WRFX, would buy the stations in September. On January 15, 1994, after a one-day stunt with a 10 kHz tone, the station rebranded as "95.1 The Edge", with new WEDJ call letters implemented on February 14. The station was initially a broad-based mainstream Top 40, which shifted towards a modern rock lean by the Summer of 1995. However, this backfired, as competition from WEND (which aired a straightforward modern rock format) forced WEDJ to shift back to a mainstream direction by January 1996. In July 1995, Pyramid would merge with Evergreen Media (its AM sister station, by then WAQS, would be sold to SFX Broadcasting). On May 31, 1996, after a brief stunt, WEDJ relaunched as "Kiss 95.1", becoming the second station in Charlotte to use the "Kiss" moniker, the first being WCKZ, which is now current sister WBAV. The first song on the relaunched "Kiss" was "I Go Blind" by Hootie & the Blowfish. The following day, WEDJ changed call letters to the current WNKS to match the "Kiss" moniker. In December 1996, WNKS (as well as Evergreen's 4 other Charlotte stations) was traded to EZ Communications (owners of WSOC-FM and WSSS; WRFX-FM would 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, which would reunite WNKS with its long-time AM sister station (by this point WRFX-AM, now WFNZ; WFNZ would be sold to Entercom in November 2016). 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. WNKS formerly served as the flagship for the syndicated Ace & TJ Show, which ran on the station from its debut on April 6, 1998 until May 20, 2011, when the duo left for WHQC due to a contract dispute. Ace & TJ will now return to the station in the mid-morning timeslot after the current morning show Maney and LauRen, which loses an hour as a result. They were replaced by afternoon host Otis. In