WLS (890 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Chicago, Illinois. Owned by Cumulus Media, through licensee Radio License Holdings LLC, the station airs a talk radio format. WLS studios are in the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood. The station's programming is also available in the Chicago metropolitan area via a simulcast on the HD2 digital subchannel of sister station WLS-FM. The station formerly broadcast in C-QUAM AM stereo.
Its transmitter site is located on the southwestern edge of Tinley Park, Illinois in Will County. WLS is a Class A station broadcasting on the clear-channel frequency of 890 kHz with 50,000 watts, using a non-directional antenna fed by a Nautel NX-50 transmitter, with a Harris DX-50 serving as a backup transmitter. Both transmitters run in MDCL (Modulation Dependent Carrier Level) mode to improve efficiency. The station's daytime groundwave service contour covers portions of five states. At night, its signal routinely reaches 38 states via skywave.
WLS participates as an Emergency Alert System primary entry point, serving northern Illinois and western Indiana.
Programming Weekdays begin with a local news and interview program, The Ray Stevens Show.WLSam.com/shows The rest of the weekday schedule is nationally syndicated conservative talk shows from co-owned Westwood One: The Chris Plante Show, The Vince Show with Vince Coglianese, The Guy Benson Show, The Mark Levin Show, Rich Valdes America at Night, Red Eye Radio and America in the Morning.
Weekends feature shows on money, health, real estate, technology, travel and cars. Syndicated weekend programs include The Kim Komando Show and The Larry Kudlow Show, as well as repeats of weekday shows. Some weekend hours are paid brokered programming. Most hours on nights and weekends begin with an update from Fox News Radio.
History Summary Founded in 1924 by Sears, Roebuck and Company—with the call sign an abbreviation for Sears' "World's Largest Store" slogan—WLS spent its early years as the radio outlet of the Prairie Farmer magazine. From 1928 until 1954, WLS shared their assigned frequency and overall broadcast operations with Blue Network-owned WENR until the Blue Network's successor, the American Broadcasting Company, merged WENR into WLS and eventually purchased it outright. The station's contemporary hit radio era from 1960 until 1989 saw WLS at a creative and ratings pinnacle headlined by personalities Dick Biondi, Larry Lujack, John Records Landecker and Bob Sirott. Since 1989, WLS has been a full-time talk radio outlet.
Establishment by Sears In the 1920s, Sears, Roebuck and Company was a major retail and mail order company. To get farmers and people in rural communities to buy radio sets from its catalogs, Sears initially bought time on radio stations. It later decided to establish its own station. Just before the permanent station was ready, Sears began broadcasts on March 21, 1924, as WBBX with noon programs using the WMAQ studios.
Sears broadcast test transmissions from its own studios on April 9, 10 and 11, 1924, using the call sign WES (for "World's Economy Store"). Sears originally operated its station at the company's corporate headquarters on Chicago's West Side, which is also where the company's mail order business was located. On April 12, 1924, the station commenced officially, using the call letters WLS (for "World's Largest Store"), and broadcasting from its new studios in the Sherman House Hotel in downtown Chicago."WLS, Chicago Celebrates 89th Anniversary with Special Event", Talkers Magazine. April 12, 2013. Retrieved August 24, 2018. The station's transmitter was originally located outside Crete, Illinois. On April 19, the station aired its first National Barn Dance. Harriet Lee was a WLS staff singer as part of the Harmony Team in the late 1920s. The popular contralto singer also played "Aunt May" on the Children's Hour show.
The station shared time on the frequency with WCBD until the November 11, 1928, implementation of the Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, at which point WLS began sharing time as a "clear channel" station with WENR.Hearings Before the United States Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. Commission on Communications. United States Government Print Office. May 8, 1929. p. 126-129. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
Prairie Farmer ownership
Sears opened the station in 1924 as a service to farmers and subsequently sold it to the Prairie Farmer magazine in 1928. The station moved to the Prairie Farmer Building on West Washington in Chicago, where it remained for 32 years. 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, located at 360 North Michigan Avenue, until October of that year. Thirty years later, it would move once more, to the studios of its then-sister station WLS-TV at 190 North State Street. 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 (itself a local National Barn Dance spinoff) in presenting country music and humor.
The station also experimented successfully in many forms of news broadcasting, including weather and crop reports. Its most famous news broadcast was the eyewitness report of the Hindenburg disaster by Herbert Morrison. Morrison and engineer Charles Nehlsen had been sent to New Jersey by WLS to cover the arrival of the Hindenburg for delayed broadcast. Their recordings aired the next day on May 7, 1937, the first time that recordings of a news event were ever broadcast.
In the fall of 1937, the station was one of several Chicago radio stations to donate airtime to Chicago Public Schools for a pioneering program in which the school district provided elementary school students with distance education amid a polio outbreak-related school closure.
Blue Network affiliation
Starting in the 1930s, WLS was an affiliate of the Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC),Broadcasting 1935 Yearbook , Broadcasting. 1935. p. 29. Retrieved August 20, 2018. 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).Broadcasting 1946 Yearbook, Broadcasting. 1946. p. 98. Retrieved August 25, 2018. 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.
In 1931, the station's power was increased from 5,000 watts to 50,000 watts, and the station began sharing the transmitter of WENR near Downers Grove, Illinois."NBC Acquires WENR", Richsamuels.com. Retrieved August 25, 2018. In 1938, the station's transmitter was moved to Tinley Park, Illinois. Changes were made regarding AM frequencies in 1941 as a result of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA); this moved WENR and WLS from 870 to 890 kHz.
ABC ownership WENR and WLS shared their common frequency on 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 under the WLS call sign. In November 1959, ABC announced its purchase of Prairie Farmer and its half of WLS, giving ABC full ownership of the station.
Musicradio era
On May 2, 1960, at 6 am, WLS went with a full-time Top 40 format.Zorn, Eric. "Old Discs, Jocks Dusted Off In Honor Of Oldies", Chicago Tribune. April 11, 1985. Retrieved August 19, 2018. Mort Crowley was the first disc jockey under the new format, and the first song played was "Alley-Oop" by The Hollywood Argyles, four weeks before it debuted on the Hot 100.The Hot 100 for the week of May 30, 1960, Billboard.com. Retrieved August 19, 2018. The station's jingles were sung by the Anita Kerr Singers; later on, the jingles were sung by PAMS Productions..
Ralph Beaudin was the station's president and general manager, and oversaw the station's transformation into a Top 40 station.Childers, Scott."WLS The Bright Sound of Chicago Radio", The History of WLS Radio. Retrieved August 20, 2018.Childers, Scott."WLS' 50th Anniversary of Rock 'n Roll", The History of WLS Radio. Retrieved August 20, 2018. Sam Holman was the station's program director and an afternoon DJ. Beaudin and Holman were both brought in from KQV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ed Grennan, an announcer on the station since 1959, was retained as a DJ under the new format.McCann, Tom. "Ed Grennan, Fixture Of Chicago Radio, TV", Chicago Tribune. August 26, 2000. Retrieved August 20, 2018.Childers, Scott."Ed Grennan 1922-2000", The History of WLS Radio. Retrieved August 20, 2018. Star disc jockey Dick Biondi, a 1998 inductee into the National Radio Hall of Fame, was brought in from WEBR in Buffalo, New York. Biondi remained on the station until 1963.Biro, Nick. "Biondi Out in Chi, Mulls Other Offers", Billboard. June 1, 1963. pp. 4, 46. Retrieved August 20, 2018. Other DJs who were brought in for the station's new format included Bob Hale from WIRL in Peoria, Illinois, Gene Taylor from WOKY in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mort Crowley from WADO in New York City, and Jim Dunbar from WDSU in New Orleans, Louisiana.