Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Shain
There was a powerful AM station in Chicago, that I could get pretty much all the time.
|
That was probably WLS, which was also extremely popular with kids and teens throughout Illinois (and nationwide at night) in the '60s-'70s (their 50kW clear-channel signal covered the state very well and had very good national coverage after sundown). I could hear that station at night where I used to live (suburban Cleveland) and can still get it where I live now, 35 miles from town.
Chicago also had 670 WMAQ, which was an NBC-operated station in the '60s-'70s and until the original NBC radio network was sold in 1986. WMAQ was a 50kW clear-channel station which had several formats in the '70s: top-40, country, talk (IIRC), and finally, a brief stint as an all-news station before it was sold and the call sign changed to WSCR. The format was changed to sports "The Score" at the same time (under new ownership by now--early '90s).
WMAQ-FM, now rock WKQX-101.1, became an affiliate of NBC's National News and Information Service, a short-lived news/information network operated by NBC in the '70s. The calls were changed to WNIS until the National News and Information Service folded in the mid-'70s.
The WMAQ calls are still held by the NBC television station in Chicago, which is still owned by the network.
Chicago's 780 WBBM-AM is all-news from CBS (the station, along with WBBM-FM and WBBM-TV, is operated by Infinity Broadcasting, a division of CBS Incorporated).