Licensed to serve Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, United States, it broadcast to the Research Triangle metropolitan area.
The station went on the air in 1949[1] as WFVG, a 1,000-watt daytimer in Fuquay Springs owned by Wake Broadcasting Company;[2] the call letters stood for "Watch Fuquay-Varina Grow".
[3] Gray Broadcasting sold WAKS to Joseph B. Wilder, James M. Butts, and L. Keith Whittle for $125,000 in 1971.
[14][a] An FM sister station, WAKS-FM (103.9), was added on December 9, 1980; it simulcast 90 percent of WAKS' programming.
[17] After WAKS-FM changed to easy listening station WAZZ in 1987, the country format remained on WAKS.
[28] The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered Bishop Willis to surrender the licenses for four of his AM stations — KLRG in Little Rock, Arkansas, KVLA in Vidalia, Louisiana, WCRY, and WSVE in Jacksonville, Florida — on June 16, 2004, after accumulating $84,000 in fines due to violations of FCC rules dating to 1999.