Months after the federal government opened the nation's airwaves to mass ownership in 1996, it seemed local stations were being bought, sold, traded and reformatted on a daily basis.

The area's radio dial - once the domain of local entrepreneurs, small investor groups and "moms and pops" - gradually came under control of a select few corporations amassing large numbers of stations called "clusters."

It now appears the acquisitions are over and the dust is starting to settle.

"I think the Augusta market is through with clustering," said Kent Dunn, a co-general manager of Beasley Broadcasting Group Inc.'s eight-station Augusta cluster. "All the big stations have pretty much been acquired."

Beasley, along with competitors Clear Channel Communications Inc. and Radio One Inc., collectively own 22 of the city's highest-rated and highest-revenue stations.

Augusta's radio market is valued at more than $15 million, which is about 17 percent of all advertising money spent in the metro area, based on estimates from Duncan's Radio Market Guide. Of that $15 million, according to Duncan's, the big three account for $9 out of every $10 spent on radio advertising.

The consolidation that occurred in Augusta during the late 1990s mirrored a national trend that started in the larger markets first. Augusta is the nation's 116th-largest radio market, according to Arbitron, a radio ratings service.

"Augusta was one of the last vestiges of the mom and pop," said Tim McFalls, the general manager of Clear Channel's Augusta nine-station cluster, which it acquired from Cumulus Media Inc. in 2000.

Early days Today, the handful of mom and pop operations are primarily serving special-interest formats, such as religion and gospel music.

Most independent stations, including the most visible mom and pop, James Brown's WAAW-FM, receive just enough revenue to cover costs.

"We don't try to compete with the larger stations," said WAAW Manager Stacy Brown, Mr. Brown's daughter-in-law. "Our focus is community radio."

At one time, every radio station in the Augusta area was a mom and pop, starting with Augusta's first radio station, WRDW-AM, which was put on the air in July 1930 by W.C. Davenport and Clark Jack.

The early years of Augusta radio also were defined by people such as J.B. Fuqua, who helped launch WGAC-AM at age 21, and later created Augusta's first television station, WJBF, and its first cable TV system, which is now owned by Comcast.

The informal hall of fame also includes George Fisher, a 40-year broadcaster and station owner who spent his last years on the air as host of WGAC's morning show, and George Weiss, a legendary entrepreneur and newsman who in 1946 helped create WBBQ-AM, the seminal Augusta station that ruled the market's airwaves from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s as it switched to the FM dial.

WBBQ, under management of broadcast veterans such as Ed Dunbar and Birnie Florie, adopted a Top 40 format in the early 1960s, making it a mainstream favorite. The pairing of hit music with the 100,000-watt station's mobile news team led by Mr. Weiss made it unstoppable.

Harley Drew, a 40-year Augusta radio veteran and current morning show host for Beasley's news/talk station WGAC-AM, worked under Mr. Weiss at WBBQ for 25 years.

"At one time, there was nobody in town who didn't listen to that station," Mr. Drew said.

George Weiss reporting live at Union Station in Augusta

Mr. Weiss, a Chicago native, picked the call letters by combining the letters of his hometown's WBBM and WMAQ. Even after he acquired full ownership of the station, Mr. Weiss was content to let his managers run the business while he covered breaking news and events from the city's most famous news vehicle, "BBQ Car 1."

"If something happened in the middle of the night, he would just go," recalls Mr. Florie, who worked under Mr. Weiss for 34 years.

WBBQ, during its heyday, consistently made the national Top 10 list of highest-rated hit-music stations.

"We were doing something the experts said couldn't be done," Mr. Florie said. "We were selling our time at a premium playing Top 40, and it was because of our local news."

The station's listenership began to change in the 1990s when management swapped WBBQ's format with that of sister station WZNY-FM, then an adult contemporary station known as "Sunny 105."

Then Mr. Weiss died of cancer in 1997, 50 years after putting WBBQ-AM on the air. He donated the stations to the foundation at the Medical College of Georgia, where he sought treatments.

The "golden years" of Augusta radio ended with his death, and some say the $14 million acquisition of his stations by broadcast giant Cumulus Media Inc. in 1997 marked the beginning of a new chapter in Augusta's radio history.

The new style Cumulus shocked many radio listeners when it axed WBBQ's storied mobile news team shortly after acquiring the station.

It was Augusta's sobering introduction to corporate radio.

The modern station cluster is a model of efficiency. The goal is to maximize profits by operating stations with as few people as possible. That means cutting redundant administrative staffing, and, to some extent, on-air talent.

As Cumulus' former Augusta General Manager Gary Pizzati said in 2000: "Radio stations today can clearly be run bodiless. The days of disc jockeys and favorites are going to be a thing of the past by 2010."

The former WBBQ mobile news department was eventually picked up by Beasley's WGAC-AM station, which Mr. Dunn has positioned as the market's premier local news/talk radio station.

"It just made a lot of sense," Mr. Dunn said about incorporating mobile news into the mix. "Our focus is to be in touch with what's going on in the metro area. Our niche is localism."

Indeed, Beasley has historically placed an emphasis on hiring veteran broadcasters to run its programs while still trying to institute most of the cost-cutting measures employed by its competitors.

Beasley on-air personalities Charlie Fox, Dick Shannon, Ron Jones and Mr. Drew, for example, have more than 200 years of experience on Augusta's radio waves.

Many broadcast veterans say radio is somewhat less fun these days. They say the corporate cluster model, with its economies and scale and centralized management, has sapped the personality from local stations.

It's possible for a rock station in Augusta to sound the same as the rock station in Kansas if it's owned by the same company because the playlists, promotions and even the jingles are produced from the same source.

"I think it's entirely too cookie-cutter," Mr. Florie said.

Today's radio industry is beneficial to businesses because they can reach a broader demographic more efficiently by placing the same advertisement on several stations within a single cluster.

"Radio advertising dollars stretch a little further today through combo buying; that's certainly true," said John Hall, the president of Hall Marketing and a former WBBQ employee. "You certainly reach a larger percentage of your target market over a cluster buy."

While radio has become more beneficial to advertisers, some in the business say the medium is cheating its listeners.

"At one time, all of the stations had their own news operations," Mr. Drew said. "Now you have one feeding four or five stations. I think the radio has lost that competitiveness.

"In the old days at BBQ, if it snowed, I could instantly have a snowman-building contest," he said. "Now, you would have to check with some consultant somewhere, and by the time you hear back from them, the snow is melted."

Competition Clear Channel, which acquired the cluster formerly owned by Cumulus, was the market's highest-earning broadcasting company until last April, when Beasley purchased GHB Broadcasting Inc.'s only two Augusta stations - the adult contemporary-formatted WSLT-FM and country station WKXC-FM, the market's No. 1 station by revenue, according to Duncan's.

WKXC, called "Kicks 99," has become an established powerhouse, having completed its 13th year on the air. And it has been without competition since the demise of former Cumulus station WUUS-FM in 1999.

"Since putting Kicks on the air, we have not had any other country station come in the market and get more than a 2 or 3 share," said Coni Samson, the general manager of WKXC and WSLT and a 24-year Augusta radio veteran.

In radio parlance, a station with a share above 6 or 7 is a well-performing station. WKXC's share among adults age 25-54, a key advertising demographic, was 10.8, according to the spring 2001 Arbitron ratings, the latest figures available.

Purchasing the GHB stations was a major strategic move for Beasley, which had struggled to compete against Clear Channel's diverse station mix.

"If we hadn't bought the (GHB) stations, we probably would have sold our stations to (GHB)," CEO George Beasley said. "One of the two clearly had to go to be competitive with the fine group of Clear Channel stations."

Mr. Beasley's radio interests in Augusta go back to the 1970s, but his personal history with the city goes back much further. He was stationed at Augusta's Army post, Fort Gordon, during the early 1950s. It was during that time that he met his wife, Shirley Ann.

Clear Channel might be the new kid on the block in Augusta, but the San Antonio-based company is No. 1 nationally with more than 1,200 radio stations in its network.

The company's Augusta cluster is still No. 1 in listening share, according to BIA Financial Network, and it trails Beasley in revenue share by a mere 1 percentage point, according to Duncan's.

"Beasley's doing a good job right now," Clear Channel's Mr. McFalls acknowledges. "Now that they have Kicks, they are competing with us on a revenue basis. Without Kicks, they were coming in No. 2 in the marketplace."

Mr. McFalls said his cluster's ejection from the top spot will not cause a radio war, because Augusta has historically been a genteel market.

"The competition is healthy, and there's no real animosity. There's no call for it in this market," said Cliff Bennett, a DJ and program director for classic rock station WEKL-FM.

However, Augusta's relatively staid radio community has been jostled a few times.

Cumulus shook things up with an aggressive marketing campaign that culminated in 1999 by hiring away top-rated urban station WFXA-FM's morning team, Cher Best and Minnesota Fattz, and half of WFXA's advertising staff to work at Cumulus' newly created WPRW-FM.

WFXA, then owned by Davis Broadcasting Co., saw its morning ratings plummet during the next year. The station's new owner, Radio One, has managed to recapture most of the listeners by filling the Cher and Fattz void with the nationally syndicated Doug Banks show from Dallas.

"Now that the dust has settled, we're trying to rebuild these stations," said Dennis Jackson, Radio One's Augusta manager.

Growth needed Augusta is a slow-growing market, and broadcasters say that must change in order to keep its radio market from stagnating.

Perhaps the radio executive most challenged by Augusta's moderate growth is Mr. Jackson, the Radio One executive who came to the city last March. In addition to the three urban stations in his cluster, there are four others vying for the market's 32 percent black population.

"There's seven stations going for the African-American market, but most advertisers only want to buy one or two," he said.

That's why, shortly after arriving, he changed the format of WAEG-FM and simulcast partner WAEJ-FM from urban contemporary to hit music to compete with Clear Channel's established WZNY, which had free rein over the city's Top 40 airwaves.

That move might not yield major results, Mr. Jackson said, but he said it has helped unclutter the urban radio segment, allowing him to position his WFXA and urban contemporary station WAKB-FM as the top stations in key advertising demographics.

"We hope to see some sort of impact in the next (ratings) book," Mr. Jackson said.

Mr. McFalls said his primary strategy for gaining revenue in the moderate growth climate will not be through cutthroat competition, but through creative sales.

"Clients want to buy great ideas," he said. "This market has moved away from the package-of-the-week type selling. You can't rob Peter to pay Paul."

The future Although the great radio shake-up that began in the 1990s has quieted down, radio in Augusta will continue to evolve.

Last year, the Federal Communications Commission announced it would begin to "review" regulations that have prohibited cross-ownership of media in the same market.

If the three-decade ban is lifted, it would allow a company to own a radio station, TV station and newspaper in the same market.

Cross-ownership existed for a short period before the regulations were adopted. From 1956-60, the owners of The Augusta Chronicle also owned WRDW-AM and its companion TV station.

The benefit of owning different media is that radio stations can be promoted in print and on television, and vice versa.

Whether the cross-ownership trend will come to Augusta remains to be seen.

Another new frontier is the Internet, a medium that allows people to tune into radio signals nationwide using free, downloadable software. However, the online radio movement hit a snag last year when unionized performers began demanding extra royalties when their commercials appeared online.

Most radio companies, including all three major broadcasters in the Augusta market, have temporarily halted Web broadcasting. But the Internet remains a powerful marketing tool for radio.

The Beasley cluster has the largest Internet presence of the big three. In addition to other features, the company uses the site to operate an online auction service that sells off merchandise the company has traded for advertising.

"It's really helped make our online division profitable," Mr. Dunn said. "We're spending a lot of time on the Internet because we think it can be a good revenue source."

The so-called "satellite radio" services are another new development that might change the radio industry. The companies, which beam signals using satellites, offer crystal-clear reception anywhere and a variety of commercial-free programming.

The new services, which require users to purchase a special radio, are so new they have yet to catch on. The old-school broadcasters wonder whether it will.

"I can see where a coast-to-coast truck driver who wants to listen to the same music format wanting something like that, but I think most people still want to hear a voice on their radio," Mr. Drew said.

THE BIG THREE

CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS

Headquarters: San Antonio

2000 sales: $5.3 billion

Employees: 36,350

Radio stations: 1,200 in U.S., equity interests in 240 international

Local stations: WBBQ-FM, WBBQ-AM, WEKL-FM, WGUS-AM, WKSP-FM, WLOV-AM, WPRW-FM, WXKT-FM, WZNY-FM

Local cluster manager: Tim McFalls

Background: The nation's No. 1 radio station owner is also one of the world's largest outdoor advertising companies. Entered the Augusta market in 2000 by acquiring stations formerly owned by Cumulus Media Inc. In Augusta, the company's nine-station cluster is neck and neck with Beasley Broadcast Group's stations for share and revenue.

RADIO ONE

Headquarters: Lanham, Md.

2000 sales: $155.7 million

Employees: 1,180

Radio stations: 60

Local stations: WAEG-FM, WAEJ-FM, WAKB-FM, WFXA-FM, WTHB-FM

Local cluster manager: Dennis Jackson

Background: The largest broadcaster serving black audiences in the United States, Radio One came to Augusta in 2000 by purchasing the station cluster formerly owned by Davis Broadcasting Co. Founder and Chairwoman Catherine Hughes and her son, President and CEO Alfred Liggins, together control 56 percent of the company's voting stock.

BEASLEY BROADCAST GROUP

Headquarters: Naples, Fla.

2000 sales: $106.2 million

Employees: 622

Radio stations: 42

Local stations: WAJY-FM, WCHZ-FM, WGAC-AM, WGOR-FM, WKXC-FM, WRDW-AM, WRFN-FM, WSLT-FM

Local cluster managers: Kent Dunn/Coni Sansom

Background: Beasley, founded in 1961, has owned and operated stations in the Augusta market since the 1970s. The company's purchase of GHB Broadcasting's WKXC and WSLT made its Augusta stations the No. 1 cluster by revenue. The company recently went public, but CEO George Beasley controls 80 percent of Beasley stock.

Sources: Staff research, Hoover's, Duncan's Radio Market Guide, Augusta Chronicle