WLS (890 kHz) is a AM radio station located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Owned by Cumulus Media along with WLS-FM (94.7 MHz), the station broadcasts on a clear-channel frequency with 50 kilowatts (or 50,000 watts) of power. WLS maintains its studios in The Loop section of Chicago, and its transmitting towers are located on the south edge of Tinley Park, Illinois.^[3]

WLS is currently a talk radio station, with its programming consisting of about half local talk shows such as Don Wade and Roma and Roe and Roeper, and the rest syndicated programming such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Adam Bold, Red Eye Radio, Wall Street Journal This Morning, Kim Komando and others. WLS also covers Notre Dame Fighting Irish football and basketball, and has carried it for many years.^[4][5]

WLS had been wholly owned and operated by the radio division of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) since the purchase of its parent company in 1959. Five years earlier WLS was merged with WENR, a station with which WLS had shared its frequency since the 1920s. ABC-owned radio stations not affiliated with ESPN Radio or Radio Disney, including WLS, merged with Citadel Broadcasting on June 12, 2007.^[6][7] Citadel merged with Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011.^[8]

Despite different owners, WLS and ABC-owned WLS-TV (channel 7) maintain a strong partnership. An example of this strong partnership was when new management at WLS radio decided to return WLS-TV anchor Ron Magers as a daily commentator during the 3 pm half hour of The Roe Conn Show. This was on the advice of WLS-TV general manager Emily Barr.^[9] WLS' website continues to be one of the most visited websites in the United States to date^{[citation needed]}.

History[link]

In the 1920s, Sears, Roebuck and Company was a major mail order company. To target farmers, Sears bought time on radio stations, and then decided to form their own station.^[10] Just before the permanent station was ready, Sears began broadcasts on March 21, 1924 as WBBX with noon programs using the WMAQ studios.^[1]

Sears broadcast test transmissions from its own permanent studios on April 9, 10 and 11, 1924, using the callsign WES (for "World's Economy Store"). On April 12, 1924, the station commenced officially, using the callsign WLS (for "World's Largest Store"); and on April 19, aired its first National Barn Dance.^[1] Sears originally operated its station at its Chicago headquarters on Chicago's West Side where the company's mail order business was located. Sears then moved the WLS studios into the Sherman House hotel in downtown Chicago.^[11]

Sears opened the station in 1924 as a service to farmers and subsequently sold it to the Prairie Farmer magazine in 1928.^[12] The station moved to the Prairie Farmer Building on West Washington in Chicago, where it remained for 32 years.^[13] For a few months after ABC's 1960 purchase of it and the format change, the "bright new sound" that began in May 1960 was broadcast from the Prairie Farmer Building. WLS didn't make the move to downtown Michigan Avenue's Stone Container Building until October of that year.^[14] Thirty years later, it would move once more, to its present location at 190 North State in downtown Chicago.^[15][16] It was the scene of the National Barn Dance, which featured Gene Autry, Pat Buttram, and George Gobel, and which was second only to the Grand Ole Opry (in itself a local National Barn Dance spinoff) in presenting country music and humor.^[17][18]

The station also experimented successfully in many forms of news broadcasting, including weather and crop reports. Its most famous news broadcast was the report of the Hindenburg disaster by Herbert Morrison.^[19]

Starting in the 1930s, WLS had been an affiliate of the Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and as such aired the popular Fibber McGee and Molly and Lum and Abner comedy programs (both produced at the studios of Chicago's NBC-owned stations, WENR and WMAQ) during their early years. When the Federal Communications Commission forced NBC to sell the Blue Network, WLS maintained its affiliation with the network under its new identity, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Under this affiliation, some programs from the network that were not commercially sponsored or which were scheduled to cross the time that WLS and WENR shifted its use of the same frequency (such as baseball or football games) were transferred to air on a third Blue Network/ABC affiliate in Chicago, WCFL. Blue/ABC network broadcasts of addresses by labor leaders were also shifted away from WLS and WENR to WCFL, which was owned at the time by the Chicago Federation of Labor.

WENR[link]

WENR became active in late 1924 and early 1925, the creation of E. N. Rauland, whose company manufactured the All-American brand of radios. Rauland started with 10 watts on 1030 kHz in 1924; on March 19, 1925, he received his license for WENR at 100 watts. By late 1925 WENR was using a 1000 watt transmitter designed by Rauland himself.^[20] The station quickly entered into a time-sharing agreement with WBCN, owned at that time by the Chicago Southtown newspaper. The two stations changed frequencies to 1040 kHZ a year later.^[21]

By 1927, Chicago investor Samuel Insull had taken serious interest in both stations. A founding partner of KYW, he sold his interest in it and had started Great Lakes Broadcasting. Insull purchased both stations, paying $1 million for WENR alone.^[21][22] Under Insull's management, the two stations once more changed frequencies, this time to 870 kHz, when the combined stations became the first Chicago radio station operating under 50,000 watts of power from a new transmitter in Downers Grove, Illinois in 1929. Insull's Great Lakes Broadcasting holdings also included a mechanical television station, W9XR, which went on the air after the Downers Grove transmitter was installed.^[22][23][24] Insull moved his stations first into Chicago's Strauss Building, and then to his own Civic Opera House.^[21][22][25] The investor's fortune began dwindling by 1931; Insull then sold the licenses of both stations to National Broadcasting Company. By early 1933, WBCN's call letters had left the airwaves and the frequency was occupied by WENR, which became part of NBC's Blue Network, and by WLS. NBC shut down W9XR by 1933, just as it had done with WX9AP, which it acquired in its purchase of radio station WMAQ.^{[11][21][22][26][27]}

Changes were made regarding AM frequencies in 1941 as a result of the North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement; this moved WENR and WLS from 870 kHz to 890 kHz.^[22] In August 1943, NBC was ordered to divest itself of the Blue Network and its stations; WENR and Blue were sold to Edward J. Noble. In 1945 the Blue Network would be renamed as the American Broadcasting Company.^[28] The 1931 sale of the station to NBC moved WENR from the Civic Opera House to the Merchandise Mart, NBC's Chicago headquarters. The station continued on at the Mart until 1952 by becoming NBC's tenant, moving back to the Civic Opera House in that year.^[29] Paul Harvey's Chicago broadcasting career began at WENR.^[30]

WENR and WLS used the same frequencies in a time-sharing arrangement until 1954, when ABC (then known as American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres) bought a 50 percent interest in WLS and combined the stations.^[31][1] In November 1959 ABC announced its purchase of the Prairie Farmer and its half of WLS, giving ABC full ownership of the station.^[32]

Rock music years[link]

In 1960 WLS hired star disc jockey Dick Biondi (a 1998 inductee of the National Radio Hall of Fame)^[33] from WEBR in Buffalo, New York,^[34] to anchor the station's new Top 40 music radio format that began May 2, 1960.^[17][35] Mort Crowley was the first on-air voice of the new WLS (6 AM); the first song played was "Alley-Oop" by the Hollywood Argyles.^[36] Other notable disc jockeys who worked at WLS (with year of death, if applicable, in parentheses) include Fred Winston, Art Roberts (2002),^[37][38][39] Ron "Ringo" Riley,^[40] Gene Taylor, Mort Crowley,^[41] Larry Lujack,^[42] Dex Card,^[43] Clark Weber, Chuck Buell, Kris Erik Stevens, Gary Gears (1991), Jerry Kay (2005), Bob Sirott, John Records Landecker, Yvonne Daniels (1991),^[44] Steve Dahl, Garry Meier, Brant Miller, Steve King, and Tommy Edwards.^[14] Some of the production directors responsible for the sound of WLS were Ray Van Steen, Hal Widsten, Jim Hampton, Bill Price and Tommy Edwards. In the 1960s WLS was a major force in introducing new music and recording artists.

WLS weekly Silver Dollar Survey, distributed free via record stores, was retitled Silver Beatle Survey during the height of Beatlemania

The first US airplay of a record by The Beatles ("Please Please Me") was on the WLS Dick Biondi show on February 8, 1963.^[45][46][47] WLS was voted by broadcasters nationally as "The Station of the Year" in 1967, 1968 & 1969. John Rook was named "Program Director of the Year" in 1968 & 1969 as WLS was estimated attracting 4.2 million listeners weekly by Pulse research.^[48] Dr. Cody Sweet became the voice of "WLS Super Summer Radio" in the late '60s.^{[citation needed]}

WLS disk jockeys at a Frisbee promotion, 1972. From left: Bill Bailey, Chuck Knapp, Charlie Van Dyke, Fred Winston and John Records Landecker.

WLS also produced the weekly Silver Dollar Survey^[49][50] from October 14, 1960 to December 22, 1967, broken by the Silver Beatle Survey on February 21, 1964 (see picture to the right) and the Super Summer Survey from May 5, 1967 to August 25, 1967. The survey nominally contained 40 current listings, except for occasional weeks when it contained less current listings, usually 20, plus a special listing of greatest oldies. Thereafter the survey changed its name numerous times (89 WLS Hit Parade, 89 WLS Chicagoland Hit Parade, WLS Musicradio 89, etc.).^[51] Starting with the July 20, 1970 survey, the number of listings dropped from 40 to 30, then varying from 25 to 40 starting June 26, 1972, then dropping to 15 by March 9, 1974, then increasing to a high of 45 by the end of 1975. No surveys were printed from March 13, 1972, through July 16, 1973.^[52] The year-end listing was the 20 greatest hits of the year for each year from 1963 through 1966, increased to 89 from 1967 onward.^[53]

By the mid-1970s, WLS became conservative about introducing new songs, and many record promoters referred to the station as the "World's Last Station" to add new releases for airplay, usually only after the songs had reached the top 10 on Billboard's Hot 100. (However, in very late 1974, the station started playing the track "Lady" by a Chicago band called Styx from an older album of theirs, resulting in other stations around the country adding the song and making the track Styx' first national Top 40 hit.) During the 1970s WLS ran a Sunday night music interview program called Music People. Well into the 1980s, WLS continued as a mainstream Top 40/CHR station. By 1985, the music evolved into more of a Hot AC (Adult Contemporary) format. In 1986, WLS began evening talk programming as its ratings were on a steady decline.^{[citation needed]}

Unique "WLS-only" versions of songs[link]

Like many AM radio stations of the seventies, WLS edited many of the songs they played into a more "radio-friendly" or "radio edit" (a term still used today) format, usually 3 minutes to 3 and a half minutes in length. Even songs that were only 4 minutes in length as a single were sometimes edited (e.g., The Doobie Brothers' 1975 hit "Black Water"). The single/LP version is 4:18 in length; the WLS version edited out some of the instrumental bridge. Of course even longer songs, such as Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight", were heavily edited. WLS engineers also made special editions of some Top 40 songs exclusively for their broadcasting. Among these were:

• John Denver's "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" (1975) – added "farm animal" sound effects.
• Reunion's "Life Is A Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" (1974) – Changed audio lyric to "Life is a rock/WLS rolled me".
• The Pointer Sisters "Fire" (1979) – Changed audio lyric to "I'm riding in your car/you turn on W-L-S."
• Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" and "Por Amor Viveremos" (1975) – Created a "Spanglish" version with alternating English/Spanish lyric vocals. The Spanish-only version of the song ("Por Amor Viveremos") charted in 1975.
• Johnny Wakelin's "Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)" (1974) – Added quotes from Howard Cosell between vocals.
• Benny Bell's "Shaving Cream" (1975) – Added additional verse making reference to WLS disc jockey Bob Sirott.

Talk radio[link]

By 1987, WLS was an adult contemporary station during the day and talk at night. Their approach was no longer music intensive. By 1988, the station evolved into a soft AC format with very few if any current product, and liberally laced with oldies. By now the station focused more on personality and less on music, including a Sunday night late night talk show called "Sex Talk" and a daily late night sports related talk show.

In June 1989, WLS announced they were going all talk by the end of the summer. Rumors were that the change was to happen September 1. Air personalities were becoming more talk intensive anyway and midday talk was added as well. But quietly with no warning, on August 23, 1989 at 7 pm, WLS stopped playing music altogether (appropriately, the last song played was a song by Chicago, "Just You 'N' Me", from their 6th album) as it became a 24/7 all talk station featuring high-rated talk talents from around the country, such as Bob Lassiter from Tampa Bay, Stacy Taylor from San Diego and their biggest hit, Rush Limbaugh out of New York. After a few years, however, they dropped Lassiter, Taylor and some of their other national hosts in favor of more local hosts. Jay Marvin also had several stints on WLS, where he was one of the few liberal voices on its political talk shows. The station is also the "flagship" broadcast outlet for the weekly, national political talk show, Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont.^[54]

By the mid-1990s, WLS had such low ratings that management seriously considered going back to its classic rock format. However, with the addition of Garry Meier to Roe Conn's afternoon show increased the number of listeners. Meier has since left the show.

On Memorial Day 2007, WLS took a cue from sister station WABC and ran a special day of musical programming, "The Big 89 Rewind," featuring live visits from Larry Lujack, Tommy Edwards,^[55] Fred Winston, Chris Shebel, Jeff Davis, John Records Landecker, Tom Kent, and other D.J.s, sounders, and airchecks from the Musicradio era.^[56] The broadcasts re-aired on Independence Day 2007, and there was a new Rewind in 2008.^[57]

The station voice was longtime WLS personality Jeff Davis. Davis was terminated on April 11, 2012 and replaced by Scott Fischer. As WLS is in the process of observing their 89th anniversary on AM 890, old jingles and station IDs were brought back, along with resurrecting a late 1960s branding, "89 WLS".

Cumulus Media terminated its affiliation with overnight conservative radio program Coast to Coast AM on many of its stations, including WLS. Cumulus is reportedly going to mix up the WLS schedule later on in 2012, as it did with KGO in the San Francisco area.

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (March 2011)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: WLS (AM)

• Official website
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WLS
• Radio-Locator Information on WLS
• Query Arbitron's AM station database for WLS
• Scott Childers' History of WLS
• WLS music surveys from 1960 to 1982
• Jeff Roteman's WLS tribute site
• I Remember JFK: WLS Radio
• Reel Radio-John Rook Collection-audio files including WLS jingles and air checks for many personalities
• Reel Radio-Windy City Airchecks Collection-WLS: The MusicRadio Years 1960-1985-audio files covering the 25 year period
• Chicago Tribune December 10, 2009-Citadel Broadcasting Prepares for Pre-Arranged Bankruptcy
• A look at the WLS studios-2004