Just 6 months after the launch of "96 Rock", on August 19, 2011, at 5 a.m., after playing "Sad but True" by Metallica, WHTQ flipped to a simulcast of co-owned news/talk-formatted WDBO. The change followed a decrease in WHTQ's ratings, and a decision to give WDBO's talk format a wider audience by putting it on the powerful 100,000 watt FM signal, which switched its call sign to WDBO-FM. The rock format at first continued on the station's HD Radio signal, 96.5-HD2, for a few months after the switch before being discontinued altogether.