It broadcasts a country music format and is owned by Audacy, Inc. WYCD's offices and studios are on American Drive in Southfield, Michigan.

For a short period beginning in August 1967, the station adopted an all-female disc jockey staff during the day, in an era when women were rarely heard on the radio.

During the fall of 1967, WABX began airing a new music show called "Troubadour" from 7 to 8 p.m., hosted by station manager John Small.

During this time, WABX was still airing an MOR format, with an emphasis on jazz-influenced music from artists like Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Mel Tormé, Nancy Wilson and Joe Williams.

The strong, positive response generated by "Troubadour" was enough to convince the station's owners to adopt a full-time freeform progressive rock format.

On February 1, 1968, a playlist of acceptable tunes went out: the DJs picked their own music, and Century Broadcasting Corporation bit its tongue.

The station played a role in giving many artists the recognition that they did not have at the time, including The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Iron Butterfly, and The Who.

One of the WABX DJs was "Air Ace" Dave Dixon, himself a musician who co-wrote the Peter, Paul and Mary hit "I Dig Rock and Roll Music."

[4] The station's studio moved from its original location in the David Stott Building in downtown Detroit to a new facility in suburban Oak Park during this period.

On July 25, 1988, shortly after Hoker Broadcasting bought the station, WDTX changed its call letters to WDFX, and rebranded as "99.5 The Fox".

The ratings then cooled off when The Fox tweaked its CHR format into "Rock 40," a variation of Top 40 heavy on hair bands and other rock-oriented acts.

[12] At midnight on Christmas Day, the station switched its stunting to an electronic Commodore 64 based text-to-speech voice counting down from 63,752 to number one on December 28.

[14] This continued until the early morning of January 4, 1993 (the first Monday after New Years), when the station finally finished changing formats and became "99-5 Wow-FM" WOWF (the call letters had actually been in place since October 1992).

On May 28, 1993, at 3 p.m., the station abruptly dropped the talk format in favor of "Young Country", with the first song being "Small Town Saturday Night" by Hal Ketchum.

Other personalities included in the original lineup were Jim "JD" Daniels and Katie Marroso (mornings), Mark Elliot (middays), Jyl Forsyth (nights) and Eddie Haskell (weekends).

The DJ schedule was later shifted, with Doctor Don still in afternoons, Joe Wade Formicola in mornings, Jyl Forsyth in middays, Su-Anna in evenings and Brian Hatfield on overnights.

WYCD kept the personality elements from the previous "Wow FM" format and combined it with younger-sounding country music to create "Morning Shows" all day that highlighted listener calls, requests and fun jock talk.

While not a powerhouse in those days, WYCD was successful in its quest to cut into W4's sizable audience share, forcing WWWW to switch to a classic rock format in September 1999.

In 2007, WYCD was nominated for the top 25 markets Country music Radio & Records magazine station of the year award.

Other nominees included WUSN Chicago, KYGO-FM Denver, KEEY-FM Minneapolis, WXTU Philadelphia, and KSON-FM San Diego.

[24][25] In 2021, Entercom changed its name to Audacy, Inc. On January 2, 2020, WYCD tweaked its branding after 19 years to simply "99-5 YCD, Detroit's #1 For Country".

Some of these include Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan, Travis Tritt, Toby Keith, and Lonestar, and in 1989, came an unknown artist by the name of Garth Brooks.

In 2010, at the 28th annual Downtown Hoedown, WYCD welcomed nationally known recording artists Uncle Kracker, Zac Brown Band, Dierks Bentley, Darryl Worley and Justin Moore, among many others.