WIND-AM

Categories: Cleanup from October 2005 | Radio stations in Chicago | AM radio stations

WIND 560 AM is a Politically Conservative but Secular Talk radio station serving Chicago. They are owned by Salem Media which is a Christian Broadcaster.

Salem Media's four formats they employ in their markets are Christian Talk/Teaching (where there are Christian Call In Talk shows locally about 6 hours a day plus Christian features the rest of the day - mostly on AM stations but on a few FM stations), Christian Teaching (which only airs boock programming and on AM only), Contemporary Christian Music full time (on FM stations only...some FM and AM stations do the format part time), and Politically Conservative Secular Talk (only on AM stations). WIND empolys the talk format.

History

WIND radio signed on back in 1927. They were sold to Westinghouse in 1956. They had general entertainment until the late 50's when they evolved to a pop music format initially leaning easy listening. By the 60's though WIND along with other Westinghouse stations employed a Top 40 music format. WLS though did much better in the ratings. Several Westinghouse stations went to an All News format. Others like WIND evolved into Full Service Adult Contemporary formats by the 1970's. Instead of competing aginst WLS they opted to compete against Full Service MOR/Talk station WGN. By 1975 WIND played Adult Contemporary Music during the day along with alot of local news and personality until 6 PM when they would run call in talk programming. Similar formats were on Westinghouse sister stations like WBZ 1030 Boston and 1020 KDKA Pittsburgh.

WIND and WGN had similar formats except WGN played less music. By 1980 WIND opted to add talk shows middays and 12 Noon newsblock. By 1981 WIND dropped all the music and added All News blocks 6-9 AM and 3-7PM. WIND was therefore reclassified as News/Talk sort of a cross between WBBM and WGN. The station did not perform as well as sister stations. In 1985 Westinghouse opted to buy NBC owned station 670 WMAQ. They opted to move some of WIND's stronger shows there and combine assets and make one stronger talk and news station. They therefore had to sell WIND. They sold it to Tichenor Radio which owned Spanish stations.

In 1985 WIND became a Spanish Adult Contemporary Music station along with Spanish news and talk shows. WIND evolved to Spanish News and Talk by the 1990's. In 1993 WIND was sold to Heftel Broadcasting. In 1996 Clear Channel Communications bought non voting stock in Heftel but in 1998 Heftel was restructured where Clear Channel no longer owned interest and was known as Hispanic Broadcasting.

In 2005 Hispanic Broadcasting made a swap with Salem Media where Salem would get WIND 560 while Hispanic Broadcasting got 106.7 FM. Salem would drop the Spanish format and put COnservative Syndicated talk on WIND. The lineup includes Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, Bill Bennett,Dennis Prager, Michael Savage, and Hugh Hewitt.

External link

• WIND