Hot 104.1 WHHL FM, one of the leading homes for hip hop on St. Louis radio, will stop broadcasting on March 24. The radio frequency will begin carrying AM station KMOX, which broadcasts Cardinals games.
The Cardinals’ previous home on the FM dial, 98.7, will be relaunched as hip-hop and R&B station Hot 98.7.
The moves were announced Monday by Audacy, the national chain of radio stations that owns the three stations.
On-air hosts at Hot 104.1 were laid off on Thursday. Audacy did not announce anything about the staff for soon-to-be-launched Hot 98.7.
Midday host Shae Bae announced on social media Thursday that she is one of multiple employees at 104.1 FM to be laid off. Audacy parted ways with the rest of the on-air staff as well, according to industry publication Radio Insight.
WHHL-FM was ranked 15th among St. Louis radio stations in January by Nielson ratings. It is the hip-hop station with the most listeners in the region, slightly ahead of KATZ 100.3 FM the Beat.
Hip-hop music was still playing on 104.1 FM as of Friday afternoon but with no audible sign of live DJs. Prerecorded promos describing a live event with WHHL staff on March 14 were still playing. A new post advertising a ticket giveaway appeared on the station’s Facebook page Friday afternoon.
“Unfortunately, I was part of today’s layoffs at Audacy with Hot 104.1. I truly loved my time at the station,” host Shae Bae wrote in an online post, “and am incredibly grateful for all the amazing experiences and people I worked with!”
More than 100 fans expressed support online for the DJ, who had worked for the station since 2021, within hours.
Radio hosts at Audacy-owned stations in Kansas City, Los Angeles, Boston and other cities announced in recent days that they’d been let go by their stations. The privately owned company laid off 200 people across its network this week, according to Variety.
Audacy is one of the nation’s largest chains of radio stations, but it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September.
Other DJs at WHHL before last week’s layoffs included KMJ the DJ, Kenny Mo and DJ Krisstyle.
This story has been updated.
Correction: A previous version of the story included the wrong FM broadcast numbers for 104.1 FM.
