Talk:WGRB

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WGRB-AM, owned by Clear Channel Broadcasting, airs a gospel music format targeted to Chicago's African-American religious community. On Sundays, the station airs several hours of services of Chicago area African-American churches. The radio station, now on 1390 khz was formerly on 1360 khz where it shared the frequency with WJKS(AM), Gary, indiana until 1933. The station began in Oak Park, Illinois in 1924 as WTAY, owned by the Oak Leaves Newspaper of Oak Park. Its studio and transmitter were located atop the Oak Park Arms Hotel, later the home of WOPA-AM-FM, WBMX-AM-FM and now the home of WPNA(AM). In its first year of broadcasting, WTAY was noted for its inexpensive advertising rates. It aired mainly Oak Park oriented programs. When purchased by Coyne Electrical School in 1925, WTAY moved to Chicago's north side to Coyne's west Belmont Avenue campus and call letters were changed to WGES(AM). The new call letters stood for the "World's Greatest Electrical School." In the late 1920s, WGES(AM)was sold to Louis Guyen, a well known dance teacher and West Side Chicago businessman, who moved the station's studio and transmitter to the Guyon Hotel on the west side of Chicago. WGES(AM) now aired big band music remote broadcasts from Guyon's Paradise Ballroom, near the hotel. It also featured several hours of programming in French, Italian, Polish and Spanish as well as Irish programs. Guyen wanted WGES to reflect the multi-ethnic community of Chicago's west side. Dr. Gene Dyer purchased WGES in the late 1930s, moving it to 2400 W. Madison St., where Dyer's two other radio stations, WSBC and WCBD, were located. In 1941 WGES was shifted from 1360 KHZ to 1390 KHZ in compliance with a radio frequency treaty with Canada and Mexico. In the early 1940s, WGES's power was raised from 250 watts to 5,000 watts directional. Its transmitter and tower were moved from the roof of the Guyon Hotel to an antenna farm at 87th and Kedzie Avenue on Chicago's far south side. Under Dr. Dyer's ownership, WGES added African-American programming to its multi-ethnic format in the early 1940s with Sunday broadcasts of African-American churches. In the mid 1940s, Dyer hired Al Benson, a former minister, whose church had been broadcast on WGES(AM), to do an afternoon black oriented record program on WGES(AM). The program began as a one-hour feature and was shortly expanded to three hours because of its popularity in the black community. While the station's black programming increased in the 1950s, with black disc jockeys Benson, Sam Evans, Richard Stanz, Sid McCoy and Ric Recardo in in its lineup, its foreign language programming decreased. The station moved from 2400 W. Madison to a converted mansion at Washington and Washtenaw when in the mid 1940s Dyer sold WSBC to comply with FCC's rulings about multiple station ownership. Dyer's WCBD moved to 360 N. Michigan, later the home of WLS-AM-FM.( WSBC, which was sold to Julius Miller, host of WSBC's Jewish Hour, remained at 2400 W. Madison.) When Dr.Dyer sold the WGES to Texas Broadcaster Gordon McLendon in 1962, it only aired four and one half hours of daily foreign language programming in Polish, Italian and German. Its Sunday lineup also carried Hungarian and Croation language programs. Dr. Dyer said he eventually planned to make WGES(AM), Chicago's first all black radio station. When hosts of the station's foreign language programs died or grew too old to broadcast the foreign language programs were always replaced with black oriented programmng. McLendon changed the station's call letters to WYNR(AM) standing for "Winner." He fired the foreign lanugage announcers and most of the black disc jockies from the old WGES(AM) and hired black disc jockeys (and one white disc jockey) from other parts of the country. This change of format resulted in criticism of McLendon in Chicago's ethnic and black communities. Law suits were threatened but never carried out. WYNR's studios were moved from the west side of Chicago to its transmitter site at 87th and Kedzie, Chicago. WYNR's format featured black disc jockeys playing top 40 music in an attempt to attact both black and white listeners. With new competition for black listeners from the new WVON in 1963, WYNR switched to mainly black rhythm and blues music. The new format was called "Red Hot and Blue." In the summer of 1964, McLendon adruptly changed the station's format to all news under new call letters WNUS(AM). This format was known as rip n' read news with announcers reading the news directly off the news wires without editing the copy. The station management refused to hire reporters to go out into the streets for news actualites. McLendon also purchased WFMQ(FM) 107.5 and simulcast the all news format on FM as WNUS-FM. This move was made because WNUS's night signal did not reach many portions of the Chicago metropolitan area. The all news format, on McLendon's AM and FM stations, changed to beautiful music in 1969, when more powerful WBBM(AM)launched an all news format. By this time, station studios had moved from its AM transmitter site to the near north side on Erie Street. In 1975, WVON owners, Globe Broadcasting, purchased the 1390 AM and 107.5 FM frequencies from McLendon and moved WVON from 1450 KHZ--1,000 watts to a more powerful 1390 KHZ--5,000 watts. WNUS-FM became WGCI(FM) and flipped from beautiful music to an album rhythm and blues format. By the late 1970s, WVON(AM) flipped to a short-live adult black music/ talk format. In the early 1980s it aired a satellite delivered oldies Soul music format. Now owned by Gannett Broadcasting, its call letters became WGCI(AM) in the mid 1980s when it dropped the urban oldies format to simulcast its more popular sister FM station's urban contemporary music format. In the 1980s and 1990s, WVON, now owned by Combined Communications, was relocated from the old WVON(AM)studios at 3350 S. Kedzie Avenue to downtown Chicago, first at 6 N. Michigan Avenue and later at 330 S. Michigan Ave. In the late 1980s, WGCI(AM) briefly tried  an all urban talk format and then returned to urban oldies music. In early 2000, WCGI(AM) adopted an all gospel music format. A few years later, now a Clear Channel station, WGCI(AM) changed its call letters to WGRB (Gospel Radio Blessings for Chicago) to differentiate it from its FM sister urban contemporary music station. WGRB's studios are now located in the Clear Channel Chicago compound at 33 N. Michigan Avenue in Illinois Center, sharing space with Clear Channel's other Chicago radio properties. Its transmitter remains at 87th and Kedzie which also serves as the transmission site for a resurrected WVON(AM) 1690 KHZ, broadcasting an urban talk format.

Submitted by Kenneth R. Masson, Chicago Radio historian kennethrmasson@SBCGlobal.net 708-636-2909

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WNUS Chicago: NOT The First All-News Station In The United States
″The station was hosted primarily by black disc jockeys from 1962 thru 1964, when it became America's first 'all-news' radio station, W-NUS, on September 3, 1964.″

Not true. San Francisco KFAX ("K-Facts") went all-news in 1960, and Gordon McLendon – who later owned WNUS – flipped XEAK in Tijuana to all-news in 1961 as XETRA ("Extra News"), covering both Los Angeles and San Diego with its huge 50,000-watt signal.

In the time after KFAX and XETRA came along, numerous all-news stations began popping up all around the United States. WNUS may not have even been one of the first ten all-news stations in the nation!

SOURCES:

The History of KJBS Radio (Bay Area Radio Museum)

XTRA-AM brought all-news format to L.A., from Tijuana (Los Angeles Times Archives)

--BayRadioDJ (talk) 22:14, 6 May 2019 (UTC)