WGN (AM)
WGN is a commercial AM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a talk radio format. WGN's studios are in the Chicago Loop, while its transmitter is in Elk Grove Village. WGN also features broadcasts of Chicago Blackhawks hockey, and Northwestern University college football and basketball.
Since 2022, WGN is the only radio station owned by Nexstar Media Group, which primarily owns television stations. It was founded in 1922 as WDAP. In 1924 it was acquired by the Chicago Tribune, whose "World's Greatest Newspaper" slogan served as the basis for the WGN call sign, and later the call sign of a television superstation.
WGN is a clear channel, Class A station, broadcasting with the maximum power of 50,000 watts, and using a non-directional antenna. During daytime, near-perfect ground conductivity gives WGN at least secondary coverage to almost two-thirds of Illinois as well as large slices of Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa. During nighttime skywave, with a good radio, it is audible over most of the Eastern and Central United States and Central Canada. The station also streams its programming on its website and supplies podcasts as well. WGN was previously responsible for the activation of the Chicago metropolitan area Emergency Alert System when hazardous weather alerts, disaster area declarations, and child abductions are issued; this is currently handled by WLS.
History
WDAP
The station first signed on the air on May 19, 1922, among the earliest stations in Chicago. It was randomly issued the call sign WDAP, from a sequential roster of available call signs, to Mid West Radio Central, Inc. This corporation was headed by Thorne Donnelley and Elliott Jenkins.WDAP was originally located in the Wrigley Building. The studios were moved to the Drake Hotel the following July. In mid-1923 ownership was transferred to the Board of Trade, and the next year the Whitestone Company, managers of the Drake Hotel, took control.
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune acquired WDAP, and on June 1, 1924, the call sign was changed to WGN. The call letters came from "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan used since 1911.This was the second Tribune-affiliated radio station to hold the WGN call letters. The original WGN began operating on the evening of March 29, 1924, after the newspaper took over programming of the former WJAZ. The WGN call sign had been assigned to a Great Lakes vessel, SS Carl D. Bradley. However the ship's skipper agreed to relinquish it in order to free it for adoption by the newspaper. The ship's call sign was changed to KFSI.
Shows and programming
Early programming was noted for its creativity and innovation. It included live music, political debates, comedy routines, and some of radio's first sporting event broadcasts, including the 1924 Indianapolis 500, and a live broadcast of the 1925 Scopes trial from Dayton, Tennessee. Wallace M Rogerson conducted the Keep Fit to Music programme. In 1926, WGN broadcast Sam & Henry, a daily serial with comic elements created and performed by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. After a dispute with the station in 1927, Gosden and Correll took the program's concept and announcer Bill Hay across town to WMAQ and created the first syndicated radio show, Amos 'n' Andy.By the fall of 1928, the owners of the Tribune company and its sister publication, Liberty magazine, controlled two stations in addition to WGN in the Chicago area: WLIB and WTAS. On September 1, 1928, the Federal Radio Commission ruled that this was two stations too many, and ordered that their operations be consolidated. WTAS was deleted, and the other two stations were merged with a dual call letter assignment of WGN-WLIB, although the latter call sign would be rarely if ever used. On May 15, 1933, after the FRC requested that stations using only one of their assigned call letters drop those that were no longer in regular use, WLIB was eliminated and the station reverted to just WGN.
CBS and Mutual Broadcasting System
On November 1, 1931, WGN's network affiliation changed from NBC to CBS as a result of NBC's purchase of a half-interest in WMAQ, which then became Chicago's NBC station. During this period, Count Cutelli installed one of the most advanced sound effects system to date into the WGN studios, the same system used in Hollywood films.In 1934, WGN became a founding member of the Mutual Broadcasting System. WGN joined with WOR in New York City, WXYZ in Detroit and WLW in Cincinnati to form the network, a rival to NBC and CBS. During the "Golden Age of Radio", Mutual was the home of The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Superman and The Shadow. For many years, it was a national broadcaster for Major League Baseball, the National Football League and Notre Dame football.
In the fall of 1937, WGN 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.
In 1939, Carole Mathews, the "Miss Chicago" of 1938, launched a WGN radio program entitled Breakfast Time with Carole Mathews. It ended later that year when she left the station for an acting career in Hollywood.
FM and TV stations
In May 1940, the Federal Communications Commission announced the establishment, effective January 1, 1941, of an FM radio band operating on 40 channels spanning 42–50 MHz. In July 1941, WGN was given tentative permission to operate FM station W59C on 45.9 MHz, pending the outcome of an FCC review whether newspaper ownership of radio stations should be restricted. Effective November 1, 1943, the FCC modified its policy for FM call signs, and the station's call letters were changed to WGNB.On June 27, 1945, the FCC announced the reassignment of the FM band to 80 channels from 88 to 106 MHz, which was soon expanded to 100 channels from 88 to 108 MHz. For most of its broadcasts on the new band, WGNB was located on 98.7 MHz. Its schedule was primarily a simulcast of the AM station, with some FM-only music shows broadcast as well. But with few people owning FM radio receivers in that era, management did not think WGNB would become profitable. Therefore, WGN, Inc. turned in WGNB's license for cancellation, and the station was deleted on May 28, 1953. The next year another Chicago station, WFMT, moved to the vacated 98.7 assignment.
In 1946, the Tribune Company applied to the FCC for a construction permit to build a television station. On April 5, 1948, WGN-TV Channel 9 signed on the air. Because CBS, NBC and ABC had their own network stations in Chicago, WGN-TV became an independent television station, responsible for most of its own programming or airing old movies and syndicated TV shows.
Change in ownership
After McCormick died from pneumonia-related complications on April 1, 1955, ownership of WGN-AM-TV, the Chicago Tribune and the News Syndicate Company properties transferred to the McCormick-Patterson Trust, assigned to the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation in the names of the non-familial heirs of McCormick and familial heirs of Patterson.In November 1958, WGN became the first radio station in Chicago to broadcast helicopter traffic reports featuring Police Officer Leonard Baldy. Flying Officer Baldy was killed in a helicopter crash, while on duty, on May 2, 1960. Eleven years later, WGN suffered another helicopter-related tragedy when Flying Officer Irv Hayden and his pilot were killed on August 10, 1971, after their helicopter struck a utility pole in the Chicago suburb of Bellwood.
Move to North Center
In 1961, the WGN radio and television stations moved to a studio facility on West Bradley Place in the North Center neighborhood, a move undertaken for civil defense concerns to provide the station a safe base to broadcast in case of a hostile attack targeting downtown Chicago. WGN radio moved back to North Michigan Avenue in 1986, relocating its operations to a studio in the Pioneer Court extension. The former WGN annex onto Tribune Tower is now used as a retail space containing Dylan's Candy Bar.Over many decades, WGN was a "full service" radio station. The station played small amounts of music during the mornings and afternoon, moderate amounts of music on weekends during the day, aired midday and evening talk shows, and sports among other features. The station aired middle of the road music until the 1970s, when its switched to more of an adult contemporary-type sound. Music programming was phased out during the 1980s, and by 1990, the station's lineup mainly consisted of talk shows.
Past personalities
Some former personalities on WGN include longtime morning hosts Wally Phillips, Bob Collins, Spike O'Dell, Paul Harvey and Roy Leonard. Orion Samuelson had been the station's farm reporter since 1960, he retired in 2020. Late-night hosts over the years have included Franklyn MacCormack, Ed "Chicago Eddie" Schwartz, and the husband-and-wife team of Steve King and Johnnie Putman.The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign holds the WGN Radio Station Studio Orchestra Music Library and Records, 1925–1956, which consists of scripts, programs, production notes, correspondence, music library rental records, sheet music manuscripts, and music scores with annotations that document the WGN Studio Symphonic Orchestra from 1925 to 1956.
Controversial management
WGN continues to recover from the controversial rule of former Tribune head Randy Michaels, who resigned under pressure in 2010 amid allegations of inappropriate and sexist behavior in the workplace, and former WGN Program Director Kevin Metheny. Industry observers described Metheny's tenure as one that nearly destroyed the venerable WGN, with staff moves that included replacing a popular evening host with radio rookie Jim Laski, a Chicago politician and convicted felon.Metheny and Laski were both fired weeks after Michaels was forced to resign by a Tribune board of directors facing spiraling losses at the hands of Michaels' management style. In 2005, Tom Langmyer was appointed as vice president and general manager of WGN.
On April 30, 2008, the station entered into a three-year deal to broadcast Chicago Blackhawks hockey games through the 2010–2011 season.