WMVP
WMVP is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, carrying a sports radio format. Owned by Good Karma Brands, the station serves the Chicago metropolitan area as the market affiliate of ESPN Radio, the flagship station of the Chicago Bears, Chicago White Sox, and the Chicago Wolves and is the home of local personalities David Kaplan, Tom Waddle and John Jurkovic. Formerly an ESPN Radio owned-and-operated station, WMVP's studios are co-located with WLS-TV in the Chicago Loop while the transmitter is located in Joliet. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WMVP is simulcast over the second HD subchannel of WTBC-FM and is available online.
From 1926 to 1987, 1000 AM was WCFL, the radio voice of the Chicago Federation of Labor. WMVP is a Class A radio station, broadcasting at 50,000 watts, the maximum power for commercial AM stations. It shares 1000 AM, a clear channel frequency, with KNWN in Seattle and XEOY in Mexico City. WMVP uses a directional antenna to avoid interfering with those other stations. WMVP's powerful nighttime signal allows it to be heard by listeners around the Midwestern United States and Central Canada.
History
Early years
In 1922, the American Federation of Labor began discussions regarding owning and operating its own radio station. By 1925, the AFL decided not to enter the broadcasting business but to purchase time for organized labor's message on commercially operated radio. The dream stayed alive with the Chicago Federation of Labor, who believed having an owned and operated radio station would be an effective way to spread its message. In 1924, the Federation gave its approval to work toward establishing a radio station. The original plan for WCFL called for it to be a non-commercial station, operating on the support of its listeners; in a sense it was one of the first large-scale efforts at public radio. Spearheading the drive to make WCFL a reality was the Federation's Secretary, Edward Nockels; without his efforts, there would have been no radio station at all.WCFL officially began on December 4, 1925; the Federation's hopes were temporarily dashed when the US Department of Commerce refused to grant WCFL a wavelength on January 13, 1926. Just five days after what could have become an end to the station, the Federation announced it would go ahead with building it anyway.
The first WCFL transmitter stood on Chicago's Navy Pier ; the Federation was able to lease the pier's North Tower for 10 years at $1 per year and its willingness to make WCFL available for city broadcasts. Initially the Illinois Manufacturers' Association attempted to keep WCFL off the air by protesting the use of public property for the station's transmitter and broadcasting site. The station purchased the land in Downers Grove where the current transmitter operates in 1928 and broke ground there in 1932. The Federation originally purchased of land in the western suburb; 20 of them were allotted for the WCFL transmitter, while the other 80 were subdivided as lots for 258 homes and 72 businesses in "WCFL Park". Nockels believed having a union-based community spring up around the WCFL transmitter would be beneficial to both those purchasing lots and building homes and to the station itself. The labor union entered the real estate business shortly before the Great Depression hit. After selling no lots in the early part of the 1930s, the Federation put WCFL Park on hold, reviving it again in 1939 with the building of a model home on one of the lots, all of which would eventually be divested.
AM 1000 began operation as WCFL in test broadcasts on June 19, 1926; the Commerce Department granted it call letters on July 10, 1926. It was officially on the air the next day on 610 kHz, with 1,000 watts of power, one of the last non-profit radio stations to take to the airwaves. The first broadcast consisted of two hours of music. In November 1926, with an eye toward being self-sustaining, the Federation added a shortwave station to the Navy Pier transmitter site, planning to use WCFL Radio Telegraph to help offset broadcasting costs. The station initially used studios at Navy Pier, but during the winter of 1926–1927 found that the weather often made them inaccessible.
By 1927, WCFL was broadcasting from 623 South Wabash in Chicago producing a quarterly radio magazine, and operating on 620 kHz; the frequency being shared with the Lane Tech High School radio station, WLTS. In 1928, WCFL applied to the Federal Radio Commission for an increase in its transmitter power and hours of operation. Several other radio stations were now also operating on the 620 kHz frequency along with WCFL and the Lane Tech station. The commission disagreed with the reasoning that such increases were necessary to serve union members. Further, it cut the operating power of WCFL to only 1,500 watts. General Order 40 brought WCFL to the 970 kHz frequency, shared with KJR in Seattle, still at 1,500 watts and now allowed to operate in daylight only. The Federal Radio Commission had labeled the station as a "propaganda" type, not truly worthy of a license. The FRC would grant WCFL a 5,000-watt license in 1932, but it would take some years of expensive discussions to attain clear-channel, 50,000-watt status.
While the original idea of a self-supporting WCFL was based on each Federation member's donation of $1 a year for all station operating expenses, by 1926, 30% of the membership had donated. The donations continued to spiral downward as time passed, especially after 1928, when WCFL's operating power was cut and it was limited to "dawn to dusk" broadcasting—from sunrise to sunset. The dawn-to-dusk operation limitations were lifted in 1929, but there was still no clear channel yet for WCFL. 1929 found the station notifying the Federation that unless members made their dollar donations, WCFL would need to implement some type of commercial broadcasting to stay afloat. This was the reason why the transmitter land had been purchased in 1928, but no construction was able to be done on the Downers Grove transmitter site until 1932. By 1930, commercials had become a reality on WCFL; the station did not show a profit until 1940.
In 1927, WCFL broadcast the Gene Tunney-Jack Dempsey championship boxing match at Soldier Field, challenging the National Broadcasting Company's exclusive claim to the event. This led to an arrangement whereby WCFL became one of three affiliates in Chicago of the Blue Network of NBC; WCFL broadcast non-sponsored, or sustaining, NBC programs not carried by WENR or WLS, as well as selected major sporting events and any broadcast speeches by union leaders aired by the network. WCFL became a member of the Mutual Broadcasting System in December 1949. When the Federal Communications Commission forced NBC to sell the Blue Network, WCFL's affiliation continued with the network through its new identity as the American Broadcasting Company, ending with the merger of WENR and WLS in 1959. Prior to this, the station offered selected programming from the network. WCFL was also to become an affiliate of the Amalgamated Broadcasting System in 1933, but that network collapsed after only a month of operations, prior to its planned westward expansion from New York. The usual broadcast day included dance and classical music, comedy, as well as radio programs in 11 different languages designed to reach out to Chicago's immigrant population.
Television, WCFL-FM, and evolution to Top 40
WCFL was also involved in early experimental television broadcasts, and operated a shortwave repeater station, W9XAA, in the 1930s. This was the first television station in Chicago. On June 19, 1928, Ulises Armand Sanabria, a local television pioneer, made the first Chicago television broadcast using the WCFL Navy Pier transmitter to send the video portion of the signal and Chicago radio station WIBO for the audio portion. Those with receivers were able to see a head and shoulders view of Edward Nockels, the Federation secretary and driving force behind WCFL. It's also possible the broadcast was simulcast by the WCFL shortwave station, W9XAA. Accounts of later broadcasts at WMAQ specify their shortwave station was used for this purpose. As the Federation tried to revive their "WCFL Park" real estate project near the Downers Grove transmitter, the decision was made to abandon W9XAA in 1937, preferring to concentrate on gaining more transmitter power for WCFL. New Federal Communications Commission rules insisted that shortwave stations have a minimum of 5,000 watts of power; the cost to WCFL to upgrade to this level would have been around $10,000. In the 1941 NARBA reallocation, WCFL moved to 1000 kHz. The same year, it was granted a Class 1-B clear channel license, and increased its power to 10,000 watts. In 1948, its power was increased to 50,000 watts.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.
In 1948, the Federation was granted a license for an FM radio station, WCFL-FM on 104.3 MHz. Its transmitter was atop the American Furniture Mart, where WCFL's studios and offices had been located since 1931. WCFL-FM went on the air March 12, 1949, and simulcast its sister AM station's programming for six hours a day–from 3 p.m. to 9 pm. This time the Federation was impatient for its new radio station to become profitable, having gone from 1926 to 1940 before WCFL was "in the black". On January 10, 1950, WCFL-FM went off the air permanently; the Federation believed its dollars were better spent for its AM radio station.
During the 1940s, the Federation's thoughts turned once again to television, and in 1953, it applied for VHF channel 11 in Chicago. The Federation lost the bid to the city's educational groups, who would put WTTW on the air in 1955. An early 1960s try netted the Federation a license for Chicago UHF channel 38. In June 1968, plans were made for building a transmitter and antenna atop Chicago's John Hancock Center, as well as other construction needs to get WCFL-TV on the air. By late 1970, the Federation had begun to look at other uses for the station's license which didn't involve the organization. Christian Communications purchased WCFL-TV in August 1975, with the FCC approving the license transfer in early 1976. At the time of the sale, WCFL-TV had yet to be on the air; it became WCFC-TV and, later, WCPX-TV.
The station carried general entertainment over the decades, but by the late 1950s, WCFL evolved into a popular music station, which had banned all Elvis Presley records from its playlist in late November 1957. The pre-Top 40 talent lineup included Dan Sorkin in the morning, Mike Rapchak following him and Sid McCoy's all-night jazz program. It was Sorkin who introduced a young Chicago comedian, Bob Newhart, to Warner Bros. in 1959. Bob Elson did both White Sox games and interviewed celebrities at The Pump Room; his sports cohort, Milo Hamilton, also wore two hats, talking football and playing music. Rapchak, who quit on the air in 1965 due to WCFL's new format, returned there in 1978, once again playing big band and jazz music.