It is owned by iHeartMedia and operates from studios located in Atlanta's Upper Westside district inside the Works ATL development.
The station began in May 1994 as country-music "Y 105.5" WYAI-FM, a class-A serving Carrollton to the west-southwest of metro Atlanta.
[4][5] The WMAX-FM callsign now resides on another iHeartMedia station in Holland, Michigan, which is currently branded as “96.1 The Game.” On September 15, 2004, at 10 a.m., following "The MJ Morning Show", the station began stunting with a heartbeat sound effect and Spanish-language liners promoting the upcoming launch of a new format.
[6] At 11 p.m. that evening, the station changed to Latin Top 40 as WWVA-FM "Viva 105.3", as part of efforts by owner iHeartMedia (then Clear Channel Communications) to expand into Hispanic radio markets.
On May 5, 2005, WWVA-FM would begin simulcasting on 105.7 FM, displacing oldies-formatted "Cool 105.7", as part of a frequency and format shuffle.
Some of the on-air staff were fired and others moved down the dial to sister station WKLS FM 96.1, which relaunched from "96 Rock" to "Project 9-6-1".
[14][15] At midnight on May 4, 2020, in the middle of "Limbo" by Daddy Yankee, WBZY dropped the simulcast and assumed the mainstream urban format of WRDG as "105.3 The Beat" (the first song on "The Beat" was "High Fashion" by one-time Atlanta native Roddy Ricch), as the 105.3 frequency had a much larger signal coverage (at 61,000 watts), albeit covering the Atlanta Metropolitan area from the southwestern portion of the market (roughly 80% of Fulton and DeKalb counties, a majority encompasses the city of Atlanta based on its primary signal coverage).