WCFS-FM

History

In a discussion at his store (Metro Golden Memories), it was noted that an early English-language announcer at the station was Chuck Schaden as a visitor, then employee in the early 1960s. At the time, WLEY was located in a non-air-conditioned three-room shack behind an awning store near Grand and Harlem in Elmwood Park, Illinois. The broadcast tower still stands on the west side of Harlem Ave, but the WCKG transmitter relocated to the Sears Tower, one of the first to use its broadcast facility.

The Broadcasting Yearbook notes that WXFM was originally a local station for Elmwood Park. It was broadcast on 107.1 in the early 1950s, moving to 105.9 by 1960. When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shut down Chicago FM WCLM (because it broadcast horse race results on its sub-carrier), WXFM moved to the WCLM studio in the 333 N. Michigan Building, downtown.

The FCC website references that the station was sold by its original owner, Zeb Zarnecki, to Evelyn Schoenfield, a school teacher. Schoenfield hired Robert Victor to run the station. Victor was the son-in-law of Sol Polk, owner of Polk Brothers appliance stores. Polk Brothers sponsored several fine arts programs on the station. In the early 1960s, Victor took financial control of WXFM, without FCC approval. That move caught up with him as the FCC revoked the station license and put the frequency up for bid. Bidders included a Blue Island, Illinois station owner who had run WRBI-FM there, and Victor himself. Because of his radio programming experience, Robert Victor was awarded the new license, now called WXFM Incorporated.

Announcers in the 1960s included Stu Olsen (now in California), Al Von Maisch (the overnight host), Tod Branson (later a Milwaukee sportscaster), George Miller (night host) and Tom Jurek (sportscaster).

WXFM played a mix of classical music, folk music, and broadway showtunes. Sponsors included Polk Brothers (for the overnight show). The station also featured jazz and was the original home of TRIAD—an "underground rock show". It was affiliated with the "Market One Network", a sales representative who also sold for WQXR in New York City. In its last days before being sold to Cox Communications, WXFM featured a brokered jazz format on weekdays and a gospel music format on weekends, which included broadcasts of the Sunday services of several African-American Churches. Weekday jazz disc jockeys included Dick Buckley and Daddy-O Holmes Daley.

In 1984 the station was sold to Cox Communications, and it became Top-40 as WAGO "G-106," featuring John Records Landecker in mornings, who had made a name for himself on WLS. The format was changed to AOR in February 1985 and the call letters became WCKG. Initially the station played rock from 1964 through the then-present day, focusing on 1970s rock, but still playing a lot of current product. WCKG hired several former on-air staff from the formerly AOR WMET, which had evolved to AC.

By the late 1980s the station began to lean toward classic rock, and by 1990, WCKG was a classic rock station. The station was sold to CBS Radio in May 1996. The station evolved into a talk format in July 1996 with the addition of Chicago radio legend Steve Dahl in the afternoons and The Howard Stern Show in mornings, remaining classic rock in the other dayparts. By 1998, WCKG had evolved to a talk format outside of overnights and weekends; the remaining music would be phased out by 1999. During this time, the station continually flipped monikers, from "Chicago's Super CKG" to "105.9 The PaCKaGe" to "105.9 WCKG" to "Chicago's Fun House". The return of rock to overnights and weekends in 2002 resulted in the station's re-positioning as "Talk That Rocks"; the playlist initially focused on active rock which slowly evolved to mainstream rock before being removed again by 2004. On October 25, 2005, with the re-branding of Infinity-owned FM talk stations to the "Free FM" brand, WCKG became known as "105.9 WCKG, Chicago's Free FM".

With Stern's departure from terrestrial radio on December 16, 2005, Infinity announced that effective January 3, 2006, WCKG would become the flagship radio station of Rover's Morning Glory. Following months of poor ratings, Rover's Morning Glory was dropped on August 1, 2006, and was replaced by the New York-based The Opie and Anthony Show. Steve Dahl continued to anchor the radio station with his afternoon drive-time show featuring newsman Buzz Kilman.

In early 2007, WCKG placed more emphasis on local announcers, with new programs featuring Matt Dahl and Garry Meier, and dropped the "Free FM" name to become "Chicago's FM Talk Station". On July 23, 2007 at 2:00 p.m., the station began calling itself "The Package" once again, at the urging of Steve Dahl. These moves, however, were not enough to save the station's ratings, which despite an upward turn thanks to Meier, had still not recovered from loss of Stern.

October 29, 2007 was the last day of the talk format on WCKG, as hosts and station staff said their goodbyes on-air. At 5:00 p.m. that day, Steve Dahl announced that his show would continue to air through November 2 on WCKG, with best-of clips airing for the rest of the day, and his entire show moving to sister station WJMK on November 5.

From October 29 until November 4, 2007, WCKG played clips of the Steve Dahl Show around the clock. On November 2 CBS Radio planted stories with the media writers at the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune that the station would switch to an all-Christmas format that afternoon before an after-Christmas unveiling of its actual new format. However this was a ruse, designed to throw future competitor and long-time ratings leader WLIT-FM off from its plans to start playing all-Christmas beginning November 8. WLIT ended up switching to all-Christmas music the morning on the 2nd; CBS Radio "backed off" its all-Christmas plan (which was actually designed to give the future WCFS a two-month head start on WTMX), and continued to play the best of Dahl all weekend.

Dahl's show moved to WJMK and became its new morning show on Monday, November 5. That day, WCKG simulcast several of Chicago's other CBS Radio affiliates. From 5:30 to 10 am, it simulcast Dahl's first show on WJMK. From 10 am until 2 pm, it simulcast WSCR. From 2 to 4 pm, it simulcast WXRT, and from 4 to 5 pm, it simulcast WBBM-AM. At 5 pm local time, after the CBS Radio News bell for the top of the hour newscast, WCKG became Fresh 105.9 with an adult contemporary format. The first song played was "Beautiful Day" by U2. The station shares its branding with sister station WWFS in the New York City area. However, this forced WLIT-FM's rimshot competitor WSSR 96.7 in Joliet, Illinois to move from adult contemporary to adult top 40.

WCKG was the flagship station of the NBA's Chicago Bulls from 2006 until 2007. With the demise of WCKG's talk format, the Bulls returned to WMVP.

The station adopted the new WCFS calls on November 26, 2007, after FCC approval. A religious station owned by the Christian Fellowship Church in Du Quoin, Illinois also uses the same calls, but is a low power FM station, and thus identifies as WCFS-LP and will be able to keep those calls.

On Monday, February 25, Morning personality Mike LeBaron and Midday personality Lisa Greene signed on as the first DJ's on Chicago's "Fresh 105.9." On April 13, Program Director Mike Peterson named Rick Hall as afternoon host. Previously, Lebaron had been well-known as a longtime part-time market veteran at WTMX-FM and WUSN-FM. Fellow market veteran Greene previously hosted an Oldies dance party show on WJMK, similar features at WILV and WUBT (Jammin' Oldies "103.5 The Beat"), was an APD/MD for AC stations, and had worked for many years as a traffic and news reporter, and co-host. Hall worked double duty as weekend/fill-in host at sister station WUSN/US*99.5 and music director–midday host at Milwaukee's WFZH Contemporary Christian "105.3 The Fish."

On Monday, September 28, 2009, Roxanne Steele, former B96/Chicago radio DJ, announced she would be returning to CBS Radio for afternoon host duties at Fresh 105.9. Rick Hall moves to mornings on a temporary basis as morning man Mike LeBaron exits.

On November 30, Steve Fisher debuted as the new morning man on FRESH. Upon Fisher's arrival, Rick Hall was moved to middays. However less than a year later, new program director Jim Ryan told reporters that Hall had been released in favor of FRESH weekender Brook Hunter.

In February 2010, it was reported that WCFS may soon be replaced by a simulcast of sports radio station WSCR, but no official announcement has been made.

On March 30, 2010, it was announced that Program Director Bill Gamble left CBS in Chicago. Besides WCFS, Gamble programmed for CBS country music WUSN ("US99.5").

WCFS-FM is the only station in Chicago sharing a similar format to WLIT-FM since the flip of WILV to adult hits in 2010.

More recently, the station began adding more soft rock artists no longer played by adult top 40 stations, such as Richard Marx.

Programming

Rock 'N Roller

The "Rock 'n Roller" was a custom built mobile studio that was built by Bertram Studios in Wisconsin. The studio was built on a GMC truck chassis and was approximately 40 feet long and had a clearance of 13 feet when the mast was lowered. The studio was used for promotional events and live broadcasts throughout the listening area.

The studio included a Marti transmitter, amplifier, tuner, and Bose speakers. The speakers were built into the sides of the vehicle and basically made the truck a large boom box for playing the station while at promotional events. The transmitter included a 40 foot telescoping mast that, when positioned correctly, was used to send live reports from a remote location back to the studios in Downtown Chicago. The mast in the truck was aimed at receive sites located on the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago and in Aurora, Illinois.

The truck also housed promotional items and giveaways, such as key chains, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and water bottles. There was a ladder on the back that allowed access to the roof. Sponsor banners were hung on the roof during promotional events. The ladder had a cover that doubled as a ramp and was used to move equipment in and out of the truck.

The large logos on either side of the truck had neon lights inside that could be lit up at night. The truck got its power for the studio equipment and neon lights from two on-board Onan generators. The vehicle was also equipment with multiple extension cords so it could run on shore power as well.

The "Rock 'n Roller" was affectionately called the "Ice Cream Truck" because of its colorful paint scheme and the sliding windows on either side. The DJ could broadcast from inside the truck or use a wireless microphone and walk around outside to mingle with the crowd. The truck had a Public Address (PA) system to address the crowd off-air.

"The Blue Box"

The Blue Box was a rolling cart that included a mixer, wireless microphone receivers, tuner, and amplifier. With this equipment and a pair of portable speakers and stands the station could broadcast indoors, while using the "Rock 'n Roller" send the signal back to the station for broadcast over the air. This is where ramp I mentioned earlier really came in handy. The box required two people to push it up the ramp.

The "Rock 'n Roller" made its debut at Taste of Chicago in 1995. It was used extensively until the station made its transition to a talk station. When the station (WCKG) changed its brand the logo on the "Rock 'n Roller" was changed to match.

References

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