WHUR Gospel Radio DJs Dictate Station Success; Top Ratings

Based on Nielson ratings taken during the first quarter of 2026, one of the top radio stations in the nation’s capital region is WHUR, 96.3-FM.

While the Howard University-owned station has perennially enjoyed high marks as an urban contemporary station while playing secular RnB, jazz and soul music, its gospel programming also manages to earn a significant share of advertising revenue.

That’s thanks to the station’s longtime gospel-based DJs, Jacquie Gales Webb and Winston Chaney according to station programming manager Al Payne.

“WHUR does very well on Sunday mornings,” Payne said. “Those two DJs are killing it. They’re both number one in their time slots.

“Jacquie is an institution and also does well with folks between ages 25 to 54. And surprisingly, Winston is a hit with listeners between ages 18 to 34, and that’s a very unique audience that loves gospel,” Payne said.

Both Gales Webb and Chaney are D.C. radio veterans, having formerly worked at the Cathy Hughes-owned WYCB radio station, based in Washington; for 40 years. During her decades-long career, Gales Webb won six local Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, a DuPont Silver Baton and a Gracie Award.

Webb’s Background:

Before Webb moved to the nation’s capital in the late 1970s, she lived in suburban Long Island, N.Y., where she graduated from Westbury High School. She attended college in Boston at Emerson College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communications radio and television broadcasting.

While still in college, she worked at WILD in Boston, and after graduation she also worked for a TV station there.

Soon after learning that an African-American business conglomerate had purchased an AM radio station in D.C., Webb said she was inspired to relocate to “Chocolate City” in 1978 to join a new group of broadcasters.

There, she met a young Cathy Liggins (now Hughes), who was general manager of station WYCB. “I started on the air, and six years later, I became program director there,” she said. “This was important time of life. I wanted to pursue what I’d been trained to do in college – and relocating to DC, provided me a chance to interact and learn from like-minded individuals who were in a startup mode, as African-American entrepreneurial media owners,” she explained.

After establishing herself as a viable broadcasting personality in D.C., Webb found jobs at Smithsonian Productions, National Public Radio (NPR) and WUSA9-TV, where she became a news producer and won six local Emmy Awards as a producer.

Webb, 70, more recently retired from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, where she held a major administrative-international role known as vice president of Radio Programs.

She also attended the very popular Jack “The Rapper” Music conventions in Atlanta, held mainly during the 1980s and 1990s. The conventions attracted music notables and industry types to its annual confab and was created and produced by black radio legend, “Jockey Jack” Gibson.

Now a widowed mother of two adult children, Ms. Webb says working part-time on Sunday mornings is quite enough.

“This job is still rewarding as it was 35 years ago. I still go out into the community and interact with my listeners and they provide me the feedback I need to incorporate into my future shows,” she said.

Chaney’s Background:

Winston Chaney grew up in Danville, Virginia. He realized radio was in his blood by the time he was a freshman in high school. He vividly recalls visiting the radio booth of a black radio station in his hometown when he was 14 years old.

“I sat in with Doyle Butch Thomas. He let me stay his whole shift, and that was very nice of him,” Chaney said. “He knew even at that age, I had a real interest in the business. Radio was always intriguing to me. The fact that you had control over thousands of listeners — that was a real interesting to me, even after all these years,” he said.

Chaney had two loves: basketball and radio. After a successful high school hoop career at George Washington High School, Cheney played briefly at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in office administration and copped a job with the Virginia Employment Commission.

After college, Chaney played semi-pro summer basketball leagues with D.C. notables like Adrian Branch, Joe Pace, Eddie Jordan, Lloyd B. Free, players who later played in the NBA.

The basketball experience also influenced his decision to move to DC he said.

While still in Richmond, Chaney copped his first professional radio gig as an RnB, secular music jock at WKIE-1580 AM.

Chaney moved to Washington, D.C. in 1980 because “it was the largest major city closest to Richmond,” he said.

There, he befriended legendary radio jock Ralph Waldo “Petey” Green and worked as his board operator at WYCB.

“He was my best friend,” said Chaney, who offers that Green was working at WYCB, when he died in January 1984, although several published reports state that the popular DJ died while working at WOL.

Approximately 10,000 mourners lined up outside Union Wesley AME Zion Church to pay their last respects, said Chaney, adding that he, along with boxer Sugar Ray Leonard and TV announcer James Brown, were pall bearers for Petey Green.

While Both Chaney and Gales Webb are D.C.-area radio legends, the duo also pay homage to the late Patrick Ellis, their WHUR predecessor, who spent more than 40 years as the station’s guardian of gospel programming.

Ellis was popular with Sunday listeners of WHUR, starting in the early 1970s, when he first went on the air.

By 1979, Ellis had helped launch the Sunday Morning Gospel show on WHUR, which aired from 6 a.m. to noon. Ellis’ penchant toward playing a diverse playlist consisting of traditional gospel to quartet to modern-contemporary styles, enamored him to a devout, diverse listenership.

After his death in July 2016 from a coronavirus-related illness, station management briefly had thoughts of contemplating who could step into Ellis’ shoes.

According to Payne, the current WHUR director of programming, without hesitation Gales Webb and Chaney were immediately considered as viable substitutes for Ellis.

(Timothy Cox is a former staffer with Gannett and Scripps-Howard publications. He is currently a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the Jazz Journalists Association. He can be contacted at teacawks2@gmail.com)

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